Fingerprints match; Guo Hua Ping is Mayor Guo

MANILA, Philippines — The fingerprints of suspended Mayor Alice Guo of Bamban, Tarlac and Chinese national Guo Hua Ping are identical, establishing that they are the same person, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) declared in its dactyloscopy report.

The report was released yesterday after a comparative examination and analysis by the NBI Organized and Transnational Crime Division.

According to the NBI, the examination was conducted between June 25 to 27 at the agency’s Dactyloscopy Division in Quezon City.

Specimens used were those of Guo Hua Ping, affixed on the Alien Fingerprint Card retrieved from the NBI master files, dated March 28, 2006 and the fingerprints of Guo, affixed on the biometric printout from the NBI Information and Communication Technology Division, with a transaction date of March 10, 2021.

The report concluded that the fingerprints of Guo Hua Ping y Lin and Alice Leal Guo were affixed by the same person, confirming that Alice Leal Guo and Guo Hua Ping are one and the same.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros had requested the fingerprint examination from the NBI.

“Indeed, the NBI has confirmed that the fingerprints of Mayor Alice Guo and Guo Hua Ping match. This means these are the fingerprints of one and the same person,” Hontiveros said.

“This confirms what I have suspected all along. ‘Mayor Alice’ — or should I say, Guo Hua Ping — is a fake Filipino. She is a Chinese national masquerading as a Filipino citizen to facilitate crimes being committed by POGO,” she added.

“This is the biggest evidence we can have to oust ‘Mayor Alice’ from her position.”

Hontiveros thanked new NBI Director Jaime Santiago for their quick action in comparing the two fingerprints, as she called on the Office of the Solicitor General to expedite the filing of a quo warranto case against the mayor.

Senators earlier revealed that Guo may have stolen a Filipino person’s identity after another person under the name Alice Leal Guo with the same birthday and birthplace was registered in the NBI clearance system.

Documents presented by Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian indicated that Guo entered the Philippines as a teenager using a passport under the name Guo Hua Ping, identifying her nationality as Chinese.

Guo wrote in her certificate of candidacy – submitted before the Commission on Elections when she ran as mayor – that she was born July 12, 1986 in Tarlac. She also wrote the same details in her NBI clearance.

But according to Guo Hua Ping’s Chinese passport, she was born in Fujian on Aug. 31, 1990. Documents also showed that Guo’s mother is not a Filipino named Amelia Leal, but a Chinese national, Lin Wenyi.

Stolen identities

Mayor Guo allegedly faked her incorporators in Hongsheng Gaming Technology by stealing the identities of vendors at the public market in Tarlac, a Senate probe found out.

During the resumption of the Senate investigation on illegal offshore gaming activities on Wednesday, Tarlac resident Merly Joy Castro said she approached the office of Hontiveros upon hearing news that she was included in Guo’s human trafficking complaint before the Department of Justice (DOJ).

She denied that a signature and Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) under her name in Hongsheng’s incorporation papers were hers. Hongsheng was the POGO that Guo represented before she was elected mayor in Bamban.

“I do not know anything about making a corporation because I have no means to make one. I only go to work and back home,” Castro, a BPO worker, said in Filipino.

When she heard about the complaint against Guo, Castro said she found familiar the following alleged incorporator names beside hers – Rowena Evangelista, Thelma Laranan and Rita Yturralde.

Castro recognized them from the public market – Evangelista has a stall where she buys her vegetables, Laranan sells breakfast food in the market, while Yturralde sells grilled meat.

Bureau of Internal Revenue lawyer Ralbert Tibayan confirmed during the hearing that Castro’s real TIN did not match that of her alleged TIN as Hongsheng incorporator.

DOJ Undersecretary Felix Nicholas Ty, who is also in charge of the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking, said Castro and other market vendors can coordinate with authorities to testify about their stolen identities.

Hontiveros warned Guo that she would be cited in contempt if she snubs the next hearing. Guo skipped the Wednesday hearing saying she was too “stressed” and that she was “prejudged” guilty by the committee.