Alice Guo’s great escape: testimony reveals how fugitive former mayor fled the Philippines

Shiela Guo told a Senate hearing on Tuesday that she, along with her siblings Alice and Wesley, were taken from their farm in the town of Bamban by a van to a port where they boarded a small white boat last July.

Hours later, they were transferred to a bigger boat and then a small vessel before arriving in Malaysia’s Sabah state. From there, the trio travelled to Singapore and met Cassandra Li Ong, who accompanied them to Indonesia’s Batam in August.

Ong is believed to be the authorised representative of an illegal online gaming firm in Porac, where more than 100 foreign and Filipino workers were rescued during a raid in June.

According to the National Bureau of Investigation, Shiela is also known as Chinese national Zhang Mier.

Shiela told the senate hearing that Alice had told her “let’s separate for the meantime” and that she was not aware of her current whereabouts, adding the ex-mayor was not her biological sister and she left the country because “she was sad”.

Immigration chief Norman Tansingco said Alice is currently in Jakarta and Wesley may have entered Hong Kong.

“We are in close coordination with our Indonesian counterparts in monitoring the movements of Alice Guo,” Tansingco said.

A committee headed by lawmaker Risa Hontiveros, who is leading the senate probe, accused the three women of spending 200 million Philippine pesos (US$3.5 million) to pave the way for their undetected exit from the country.

She also rebuked officials for failing to effectively implement border laws, while senator Sherwin Gatchalian said the episode was a “huge shame” to the country, the Philippine Star reported.

President Marcos said on Tuesday that Secretary of Justice Jesus Crispin Remulla would get to the bottom of the issue and there were