TARLAKENYO (June 29, 2025) — A Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) has officially nullified the 2022 proclamation of Alice L. Guo as Mayor of Bamban, Tarlac, declaring her to be a Chinese national and thus unqualified for public office in the Philippines.
The decision, handed down on June 27, 2025, by Judge Liwliwa Hidalgo-Bucu of Manila RTC Branch 34, stated unequivocally that Guo is “undoubtedly a Chinese citizen, born by Chinese parents, namely: Guo Jian Zhong and Li Wenyi (also referred to as Lin Wenyi in some reports).”
It concluded that “Alice Leal Guo is nothing more but a usurper of the Office of the Mayor of Bamban, Tarlac,” rendering her proclamation void from the outset.
The court granted a petition for quo warranto filed by the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), a legal mechanism used to challenge an individual’s right to hold public office. The ruling emphasized the national security implications of a foreign national allegedly “circumventing the law by posing herself as a Filipino citizen” to assume a public position.
Key evidence presented by the OSG included the assertion that Alice Leal Guo and Chinese citizen Guo Hua Ping are the same person. This was supported by the National Bureau of Investigation’s finding of matching fingerprints for both identities, despite denials from Guo’s legal counsel during previous Senate inquiries.
The court also noted the absence of birth, death, or marriage records for Guo’s alleged parents in the Philippines, and confirmed that Guo and her parents hold Chinese passports. The court found “dubious entries” in her Certificate of Live Birth filed in Tarlac City, which lacked credible supporting evidence.
This landmark decision comes amidst a series of legal challenges and controversies surrounding Guo.
In August 2024, the Office of the Ombudsman (OMB) had already ordered her dismissal from service for “grave misconduct” in connection with alleged illegal activities of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) hubs in her town.
In September 2024, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a non-bailable qualified trafficking in persons case against Guo and several co-accused before the Pasig City RTC, stemming from a raid on the Zun Yuan Technology Center, a POGO in Bamban, in March 2024. The DOJ has also filed 26 counts of money laundering cases against her.
Guo is currently detained at the Pasig City Jail Female Dormitory, following her arrest in Indonesia in September 2024 after initially eluding the local authorities.
Despite her Philippine passport being canceled and mounting evidence against her, she has consistently maintained her Filipino identity and denied allegations of being a Chinese spy, even as authorities have uncovered discrepancies in her documents and inconsistencies in her accounts.
The Manila RTC’s ruling on her citizenship not only disqualifies her from the Bamban mayoral position but also bars her from running for office in the first place, as her disqualification due to lack of Philippine citizenship existed at the time she filed her Certificate of Candidacy.
