OSG files petition to cancel Alice Guo's birth certificate
The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) has filed a petition seeking the cancellation of the birth certificate of suspended Bamban Mayor Alice Guo.
The petition was filed before the Tarlac Regional Trial Court by the lawyers of the OSG on Friday, July 5, according to the Philippine News Agency.
SolGen Menardo Guevarra said they made the move on the grounds of Guo’s failure to submit the required supporting documents for late registration and the fact that it was registered by her alleged father in 2005 only when she was 19 years old.
He also noted the “glaring inconsistencies” in her personal information between her birth certificate and other public records, which were likewise previously flagged by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in May.
“If her birth certificate is cancelled, she will lose her most important defense evidence about her identity,” Guevarra told the media, according to a GMA News report.
He clarified that the petition is not a prerequisite to the upcoming quo warranto, which may result in her removal from the public post. A quo warranto petition may be filed by the government or an individual against “a person who usurps, intrudes into, or unlawfully holds or exercises a public office, position or franchise,” as stated in Rule 66 in the Rules of Court. This also means that the denial of the petition won't negatively affect the filing.
The petition seeking to cancel Guo’s birth certificate follows PSA's recommendation to the OSG, noting the “irregular process in the registration.”
The National Bureau of Investigation previously reported that the fingerprints of Guo are identical to a Chinese citizen named Guo Hua Ping. The agency's document, presented by Sen. Risa Hontiveros in a Senate hearing, also showed that the mayor shares the same identity, birthday, and birthplace with another woman named Alice Leal Guo. Earlier this week, the NBI said there was a third Alice Guo that filed for clearance in 2005.
Guo has been subject to scrutiny since she was allegedly linked to two Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators Hongsheng Gaming Technology Incorporated, which was raided in February 2023, and Zun Yuan Technology Incorporated in Bamban, which was raided in March this year. She was questioned why she was supposedly unaware of such alleged illegal activities.
In the Senate hearing, she was asked about her background to confirm her nationality, especially since she currently holds a high post in the local government. Senators also noted that according to Bamban residents, the mayor came out of nowhere during the 2022 elections. They speculated that Guo could be a Chinese spy infiltrating the Philippine government.
Guo has since maintained that she's a Filipino, denying claims that she has ties to POGOs in Bamban and that she's a Chinese spy. She also said that she was raised on the farm of her father, was homeschooled, and that her maid of a mother left her. But as weeks passed, authorities discovered discrepancies in several documents involving Guo, as well as holes in her stories.