Senator Risa Hontiveros, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality, revealed during Wednesday’s hearing that 16 vehicles are registered under the name of Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Gou.
These said vehicles include pick-up trucks, sports utility vehicles (SUVs), a closed van and some dump trucks.
Guo responded by saying that these vehicles are no longer part of her assets, and that she’s an incorporator of Westcars. “Westcars is a buy-and-sell business which is why there are cars that are circulated. But the one I use now is GAC,” she said.
The mayor also admitted that she owns a meat shop, a piggery, and embroidery business.
On this note, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said that owning a chopper does not make Guo an “ordinary person”.
The chopper, Guo said, which she planned on using as an air taxi, had been sold to a British company recently.
“Your SALN is almost at P300 million,” Gatchalian recounted.
Guo told the Senate committee that she built her businesses through the assistance of her father, who gave her half a million pesos to over a million albeit not on a regular basis. Guo’s father owned and operated an embroidery and fabric company in mainland China.
So far as the luxury vehicle being linked to Guo is concerned, she said a certain car dealer owns the vehicle, which she used for a car show in Tarlac with permission.
Guo got in hot water when the POGOs located inside the Baofu Compound in Bamban were raided in March 2024.
Gatchalian suspects that the same compound may have been utilized for money laundering activities, as well as human trafficking, and other scams.
Guo stands as the proprietor of the land on which the compound is built, and as former incorporator of the Baofu Corporation.
Senator Gatchalian believes that the syndicate operating at the compound is huge. “We don’t know where the money came from,” he said.
Guo likewise made the comment that she has no clue as to where the money came from, which, in Senator Gatchlian’s estimate, amounted to P6.1 billion including the buildings in the compound.
Guo said, “I thought I will not lose anything. I won’t shell out money so I didn’t look into it.”
Huang Zhiyang, which the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Division (PAOCC) tags as a fugitive, is a fellow incorporator in Guo’s business and a regular customer in her meat shop.
She met Huang in Clark and persuaded him to put up a business within her property. Huang likewise brought in other incorporators to join them, according to Atty. Stephen Davod, the mayor’s counsel.
Chinese nationals Zhang Ruijin and Dominican Baoying Lin, who sat as Baofu’s former incorporators, are said to have been involved in one of the biggest money laundering case in Singapore.
Guo said she only found out about Huang’s fugitive status during the May 7 Senate inquiry.
Because of this, Senator Hontiveros raised Guo’s failure to conduct due diligence when accepting business partners.