The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on Tuesday filed before the Department of Justice an additional complaint against dismissed Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo and her family for falsification and violation of the Anti-Dummy Law.
Aside from Guo, the NBI named as respondents her sister, Shiela, and brother, Siemen Guo, as well as their parents, Lin Wen Yi and Jian Zhong Guo, as incorporators of the firm that bought parcels of land in Mangatarem, Pangasinan.
NBI National Capital Region director and spokesperson Ferdinand Lavin said the family misrepresented themselves as Filipino citizens but the bureau was able to sufficiently establish that they were Chinese citizens based on forensic examinations of the fingerprints appearing in various documents from the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Bureau of Immigration.
Lavin said that since the Guos are Chinese citizens, they violated rules on foreign ownership of property in the Philippines.
“There are different laws covering foreign corporations. Pinalabas nila dito na sila ay (They made it appear they were a) Filipino corporation with 65-percent ownership,” Lavin said.
He noted the transaction of the Guos involved four parcels of land covered by three deeds of sale.
He said the Guos also lied about being residents of Bulacan in a barangay certification obtained by the NBI.
Lavin said the NBI was moving forward with a criminal forfeiture case involving the state’s confiscation of assets or proceeds in favor of the government, or in this specific case in favor of the NBI concerning the parcels of land.
While no government agency was named as a respondent in the complaint, Lavin said the purchase of properties in the Philippines by the Guos should serve as a lesson for government agencies.
He said this case should be a wake-up call for all regulatory and other government agencies to better synchronize their records and ensure accuracy, urging them to avoid dismissing such matters as merely ministerial or limited to registration.