Mayor Guo: I am a Filipino

MANILA, Philippines — She is the lovechild of a Chinese father and a Filipino househelper, and she is a Filipino, Mayor Alice Guo of Bamban, Tarlac asserted yesterday.

Guo denied allegations that she is involved in illegal Philippine offshore gaming operations (POGOs), a spy or an asset of a foreign country.

She said of all the allegations hurled against her, it is being called a spy that hurts her the most.

“I am not a spy, that’s what hurt me most. I am not a spy. I am a Filipino and I love my country. I am not a spy, I am not an asset,” she said.

Guo said her biological mother was a former maid at their farm, and that her father admitted to her when she was 12 or 14 years old she was their lovechild.

“I am a Filipino. My biological mother is a Filipina. I am a Philippine passport holder and I have only one passport. I did not grow up with my biological mother. I found out when I was 12 years old that she was a househelp,” she said in an interview with ANC Digital’s Headstart hosted by Karen Davila.

Guo said she has never met her mother personally. She apologized to Sen. Risa Hontiveros for not answering her queries during a Senate hearing, saying she did not want to disclose matters she deemed private.

“During the Senate hearing, I had a mental block. I am not from Manila, I am a probinsyana. I am not used (to being a city girl) and I was scared. I had a mental block, that’s the correct term,” she said.

Guo said hearing insinuations that she should be deported hurts as she insisted she is a Filipino citizen.

She said she chose to be a Filipino when her Chinese father asked her to pick her citizenship.

“My own mother abandoned me, now my own country is turning her back on me… is going to deport me? Where to? China, Malaysia, Singapore? I have only one passport… I am a Filipino,” she said.

Guo clarified that she did not apply for a permit or license to operate POGOs, noting she only introduced her former business partners for a letter of no objection.

She said she offered the Baofu compound to some of her associates, an area used by the Zun Yuan Technology Inc., which was raided for illegal POGO operations.

Guo denied she was a protector of POGOs, saying she