AMID the incessant rain and news of harm and destruction brought by Enteng, one sunny development is the arrest of dismissed Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo, who also supposedly goes by the name of Guo Ha Ping, in Indonesia.
As of this writing, Philippine officials are coordinating with Indonesian immigration authorities for Guo’s return to Manila at the soonest possible time.
She will then be turned over to the Senate, which has issued an arrest order for contempt against her. This is the only standing warrant against the former mayor, even as cases have been filed against her for money laundering and human trafficking by the National Bureau of Investigation, the Anti Money Laundering Council, and the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission.
Guo was famously evasive during her Senate testimonies, with life details almost too fantastic to believe.
She has become the subject of jokes and memes in popular culture and on social media. The jokes intensified when it became known that she had disappeared.
Then again, how someone as alien as Guo could be elected mayor of a town has always been a puzzle.
We wonder: how much light would she be able to shed on the Duterte-era phenomenon that is Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGOs)?
Now that she is in custody, would she be any more forthcoming regarding her involvement in gaming, and most especially on who exactly enabled and emboldened the likes of her to engage in said economic activity?
And for whose prime benefit?
It would be interesting to see how Guo will be made to “face justice,” as those who promptly exalted her arrest said.
We should not forget, however, that the matter does not begin and end with Guo.
The issue of gaming operators and the ill they bring is not limited to one woman with a shady past.
It carries implications that go beyond the amusing details we all were treated to during the Senate hearings.
There is abuse of power, deceit, corruption on a grand scale, undue economic advantage, security risks, unconscionable working conditions, crime, and danger to Filipinos.
All in the name of supposed additional economic activity.
There is thus a bigger story to be told.
Guo’s disappearance is a feat that cannot be accomplished by one person alone.
There were friends who helped her.
People of influence who ensured the availability of resources for her to escape authorities’ watch. Personalities who held sway so that her presence would not be detected, or at least flagged.
They should be hunted as well.
Guo’s arrest is not a happy ending to this saga.
To focus on Guo while turning a blind eye to those who conspired to make her escape possible would be a travesty and a disservice to the Filipino people.
