Sen. Risa Hontiveros said that while a confidant of self-proclaimed spy She Zhijiang confirmed that dismissed Bamban mayor Alice Guo is indeed engaged in espionage, there is still a need to interview She himself to uncover the extent of Beijing’s intelligence network in the Philippines.
The senator explained that she managed to interview Wang Fugui, a Chinese national who claims to be She’s close friend and the keeper of his files.
Hontiveros noted that she tried to reach out to She but failed to gain access to the shady businessman who claims to also spy for China’s intelligence ministry.
Instead, she settled for Wang, who said he developed a friendship with She when they were cellmates in a Thai prison.
In 2022, She was jailed for gambling crimes while Wang was detained for credit card fraud.
In his testimony, Wang told the Philippine senator that the Chinese government even funded Guo’s mayoralty campaign.
“Her campaign itself was arranged by Chinese state security,” Wang told Hontiveros in a virtual interview.
The interview was shown to other senators during Tuesday’s Senate hearing.
Wang, however, said that he was not privy to the precise nature of Guo’s assignment or exactly who she was spying on.
Still, he said it seemed unlikely that Guo was a high-ranking intelligence officer but a mere operative.
“Guo Hua Ping was a spy but not a special one. It just so happens there is a copy of her state security background there,” Wang explained.
Of his friendship with She, Wang said, “We were good friends who trusted each other and lived in prison.”
“After my release, he entrusted me to handle some of his declassified file matters,” he further claimed.
Hontiveros’ office tried to get in touch with She but was not given access to him, prompting them to reach out to Wang, a former cellmate of She in Thailand and who was imprisoned for a year and a half due to credit card fraud.
The virtual interview with Wang was shown during Tuesday’s Senate hearing.
Hontiveros emphasized the importance of her panel’s efforts to expose China’s spy ring in the Philippines.
“It seems it is not only we in legislature, but even you in the executive [branch] stand to gain by learning about such foreign covert operations,” she said in Filipino.
Despite fresh accusations on top of earlier ones, Guo still denies being a Chinese spy or having had any association with She.
Her lawyers have even floated the idea of filing a defamation case against Al Jazeera, the network that broadcasted the interview with She.
However, Guo did admit to Senators that a community in China congratulated her through an ad in a Chinese newspaper when she won Bamban mayoralty seat in the 2022.
Meanwhile, Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada was taken aback by Wang’s revelations.
“As chairperson of the Senate Committee on National Defense and Security, Peace, Unification and Reconciliation, I am particularly alarmed by this explosive revelation. Could this be a confirmation of what we have suspected all along that our country now has Chinese ‘sleeper agents’ in our midst? This is a serious national security concern,” he said in a statement.
