Who’s Alice Guo? Mayor of Bamban Accused of Being a Chinese language Secret agent

MANILA – Mayor Alice Guo’s flip within the political highlight comes because the maritime dispute between Manila and Beijing escalates. A sleepy the town in Filipina got here into the nationwide highlight after its mayor used to be accused of being a Chinese language agent.

Bamban is a nondescript the town at the rice-growing flood plains north of the capital, Manila. The mayor, Alice Guo, is the image of an lively younger civil servant.

Likes purple garments

Photograph/Social Media/BBC

Bespectacled, with lengthy black hair and a large smile, the 35-year-old speaks Tagalog and not using a overseas accessory and loves to put on purple in public.

His existence – he claims he grew up on a pig farm – didn’t carry considerations, till he used to be referred to as to testify ahead of a Senate listening to previous this month.

Trapped in a On line casino Stuffed with Chinese language Other people

Regulation enforcement has came upon that the web on line casino – identified in the neighborhood as Pogo – in his the town is in reality a entrance for a fraud middle.

Government raided the power remaining March and rescued just about 700 employees, together with 202 Chinese language nationals and 73 different foreigners who have been pressured to pose as on-line enthusiasts.

Pogo is an abbreviation for Philippine Offshore Playing Operator whose shoppers come with mainland Chinese language.

Those companies have thrived below Rodrigo Duterte, whose presidency, which results in 2022, has been marked via shut ties to China.

However below the management of present president Ferdinand Marcos, Pogos got here below intense scrutiny after it emerged that a few of them have been used as fronts for human trafficking and on-line fraud operations.