September 5, 2024 | 7:55pm
MANILA, Philippines — It seems like deja vu for the Senate as they probed Alice Guo’s purported sister Shiela Guo, with their questions often being answered with inconsistent, vague answers or a simple “I don’t know.”
Shiela and POGO incorporator Cassandra Li Ong were detained by Indonesian authorities in August. Like her sister, Shiela escaped the Philippines following the Senate’s arrest warrant to Shiela over her failure to attend their hearings.
Shiela also claimed to have no knowledge of several things. During Thursday’s Senate probe ito the Guos’ escape from the Philippines despite their arrest, Shiela struggled to answer questions.
The senators had to repeat and rephrase questions, only to be met with answers that do not extend past two sentences.
To recall, Alice was unable to answer basic questions about her childhood while the Senate was investigating her ties to POGOs. For example, she was not able to recall the location of her birth. At one point, she also claimed to be an only child despite there being two other siblings on her birth certificate.
In the case of Shiela, she has appeared twice in Senate hearings but has been largely unable to say anything concrete about her role in the family business.
Shiela claimed to simply be a worker in her family’s embroidery business, signing whatever Alice and their father, Angelito Guo (or Guo Jian Zhong) asked her to sign.
However, her family business’ documents suggest otherwise, as they list Shiela as a corporate secretary, chief finance officer and treasurer. Asked during the previous hearing if she understood what this meant, she said she did not know.
In the previous hearing, Shiela said that they escaped the country through the sea. However, she could not name which port they left from. In this latest round of questioning, she stood by this story. This time, she added that they left through a pier.
Asked on Thursday by Sen. Risa Hontiveros where this pier was, Shiela went to her default answer: “Hindi ko talaga alam (I do not know).”
Shiela was able to add that they passed through the Balintwak toll gate and traveled through the Skyway. She also could not name where they landed specifically.
After much asking from senators a few hours into the six-hour hearing, Shiela admitted that she did wonder during the boat ride if they were doing something wrong.
When it comes to figuring out their real family lineage, Shiela was also inconsistent. At one point, she admitted that she and Alice were not at all biologically related, but would insist that Alice and her shared the same father since her dad said so.
Both Shiela and Alice also seemingly played deaf at times, asking senators to repeat their questions multiple times.
Pent up, senators doubted that Shiela was as clueless as she was pretending to be.
“Hindi mo kami pwede bolahin na sasabihin mo na wala ka talagang alam lahat,” Sen. Joel Villannueva said during the hearing. (You cannot fool us when you say you do not know.)
Hontiveros also doubted Shiela’s statements, and encouraged her to tell the truth due to the volume of cases she faces. It would be impossible for Shiela to not know that there was nothing wrong with forging her Filipino identity or that they escaped the country.
Alice is set to be turned over to the Senate on Friday, and another hearing is set for Monday.
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