BAMBAN, Tarlac — Even after her incarceration, dismissed mayor Alice Guo still casts a long shadow over this town as the incumbent local chief executive has been suspended.
Bamban Mayor Jose Salting Jr. was meted a three-month suspension without pay on Monday, June 22, 2026.
The disciplinary action, ordered by the Office of the Ombudsman, stemmed from an administrative complaint filed by the National Bureau of Investigation involving Guo, whose Chinese name is Guo Hua Ping.
Apart from Salting, the anti-graft body found incumbent councilor Alvin Dale Sibal and former councilor Nikko Balido guilty of “simple misconduct” and meted out an identical three-month suspension.
Municipal Assessor Mar Antonio Tan was likewise found guilty of “simple neglect of duty” and was slapped with a one-month suspension for lack of proper attention in the performance of his duties.
The suspensions trace back to the improper issuance of Special Ordinance No. 59-2019, an ordinance enacted when Guo was still a private citizen.
Before entering politics and winning the town’s mayorship in 2022, Guo sought the reclassification of a 7.9-hectare agricultural property into an industrial, commercial, and residential zone.
This specific land later became the sprawling Baofu Land Corporation compound, which housed the raided Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGOs) Hongsheng Gaming Technology Incorporated and then Zun Yuan Technology Incorporated.
Discrepancies in the acquisition of the land continue to hover over the town’s history.
During congressional investigations, Guo testified that she acquired 7.4 hectares of the property on an installment basis in 2018 for approximately P52 million, computed at P700 per square meter.
However, land records revealed that she actually purchased 7.92 hectares across eight parcels of land for just P11.8 million, or about P150 per square meter, in 2019.
Throughout the Congressional inquiries, the dismissed mayor maintained she had divested her shares from Baofu before running for office and denied direct involvement with the operations.
Guo insisted that former Bamban mayor Jose Antonio “Jun” Feliciano assisted her in securing a “letter of no objection” for Hongsheng’s business license application, noting that Feliciano and her local hog-raiser friends backed her subsequent mayoral bid.
Vice Mayor Leonardo Anunciacion officially stepped in as the acting local chief executive.
