“With all law enforcement agencies looking for her, she slipped away so easily which proves once again how inept our investigative agencies are”
WELL folks, Alice Guo is no more.
The Bureau of Immigration has confirmed the former mayor has executed with the obvious help of some people what could only be described as a great escape and is now in Indonesia.
From what could be deduced from the media and other sources, she seems to have left by charter flight first to Malaysia then Singapore and then by ferry to Indonesia.
She also left using her Philippine-issued passport which should have been canceled together with that of her family long ago but was only done two days ago.
With all law enforcement agencies looking for her, she slipped away so easily which proves once again how inept our investigative agencies are.
One of the first things that should have been done when the Alice Guo investigation started was to cancel or make her surrender her Philippine passport so she could not use it to leave the country.
With her gone, another zarzuela will now be added to the unfinished business of investigating all the cases that have been filed against her.
The BI and the DFA have now a lot of explaining to do.
Her escape, however, should not really be so difficult to investigate if the government really wants it.
This is because charter flights must have flight plans submitted together with the name of pilot and passengers.
In the end, all the actors in this drama will eventually be known and, perhaps, heads will really roll.
But it was really amazing how easily she was able to leave, given that all law enforcement agencies were supposedly looking for her with the BI closely monitoring all exit points.
That she had help from certain government officials seems to be a given.
Whether the government will be able to identify them and have the political will to take action is another matter.
The trouble with our system is in this investigation, it has been the Senate that has been taking the lead instead of our regular law enforcement agencies which tells us a lot about how this Alice Guo issue is being handled.
Maybe POGO has something to do with all these.
POGO tentacles and influence appears to have been able to penetrate every level of government that normal government processes has been thrown into disarray perhaps due to corruption.
This Alice Guo investigation has become so convoluted that it is hard to see what the government end game will be.
Kudos however, must really go to Senators Sherwin Gatchalian and Risa Hontiveros whose dogged persistence led to the President abolishing POGO.
But as the public is seeing the war against POGO is not yet really over.
The government must still guard against those silent forces who are still working to try to save POGO or some parts of it for reasons we can only guess.
With regard to Alice Guo, however, what happens now that she is gone?
Will the government try to extradite her from Indonesia?
Perhaps it is better to simply just leave things as they are now.
Extraditing her from Indonesia or any other country depending on where she decides to stay longer would only prolong the already complicated situation.
The cancellation of her Philippine passport might be the better option because by doing that, Alice Guo will revert to using her Chinese passport which she still apparently holds and let China deal with her.
Depending on how she will be treated by China we can more or less figure out whether she is indeed a sleeper as some people here have been suggesting or will be charged because of her involvement in POGO which the Chinese government is against.
But if the government will simply wash its hands on Alice Guo now that she is gone, we will never find out the extent of what she really did here and the extent of the damage she has inflicted on the country.
We owe it to ourselves to dig deeper to try to find out the whole extent of POGO operation in this country and the people who benefitted from it since it started in 2017.
