Deported former Philippines mayor Alice Guo has returned home from Indonesia

MANILA (Reuters) – Former Philippine mayor Alice Guo, who is accused of having links to Chinese crime syndicates and laundering over 100 million pesos ($1.79 million), arrived in Manila early Friday after being deported from Indonesia.

Guo, also known as Chinese national Guo Hua Ping, was arrested by Indonesian authorities on Wednesday after leaving the Philippines in July. She is wanted by the Philippine Senate for refusing to appear before a congressional inquiry probing her alleged criminal ties.

Philippine law enforcement agencies, including the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), have filed multiple money laundering charges against Guo and 35 others with the Department of Justice.

Guo, who says she is a native of the Philippines, has denied the allegations and called them malicious. She was deported from Indonesia for violating immigration laws, the Jakarta immigration agency said on Thursday.

The former mayor arrived in Manila on a private plane accompanied by Philippine law enforcement officials, including the country's Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr., who presided over her transfer of office from Indonesian authorities in Jakarta on Thursday.

“I have received death threats and am asking (the Philippine authorities) for help,” Guo said at a press conference shortly after her arrival in Manila.

Abalos promised to ensure Guo's safety, but urged her to tell the truth. “Reveal all the names so that justice can be done and this can all end. That is the only way we can help her,” he said.

The Senate launched an investigation into Guo in May after a March raid by police officers at a casino in Bamban, where she was mayor, uncovered alleged fraud operating from a facility built on land partly owned by Guo.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Friday demanded that Guo disclose how these offshore gambling operators, known locally as POGOs, got involved in crime. Marcos banned the online gambling industry in July.

“It will not help her at all if she remains evasive,” Marcos told reporters. Guo is scheduled to appear before the Senate on Monday when it resumes its investigation.

Guo became mayor of Bamban city in Tarlac province in the northern Philippines in 2022. She ran as a Filipino citizen, but it later turned out that her fingerprints matched those of Chinese citizen Guo Hua Ping, the National Bureau of Investigation said in August.

In August, she was removed as mayor by an anti-corruption agency citing serious misconduct related to her alleged links to illegal gambling operations in Bamban.

(1 USD = 55.98 Philippine Pesos)

(Reporting by Mikhail Flores and Adrian Portugal; additional reporting by Stanley Widianto in Jakarta; editing by Michael Perry)