September 8, 2024 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — The government is working with its international counterparts for the surrender of Wesley Guo, the brother of dismissed Bamban mayor Alice Guo.
Interior and Local Government Secretary Benhur Abalos said efforts are underway to bring Wesley, who was among those ordered arrested by the Senate after refusing to appear in its probe on illegal Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs), back to the country.
The lawyer of the Guo family, Stephen David, earlier said Wesley plans to surrender following the arrest of his sister in Indonesia.
Apart from their international counterparts, Abalos said also involved in the talks are the Philippine National Police (PNP) and Wesley’s camp.
The department chief said Wesley himself relayed his plan to surrender, though Abalos was tight-lipped when pressed for details.
He stressed that other pieces of information that may come out in public could preempt efforts to put Wesley under government custody.
“There are people who are handling everything. That’s what I would say for now,” he said.
There were previous reports that Wesley attempted to enter Hong Kong from Indonesia after his other sister Shiela and their associate Cassandra Ong were apprehended by Indonesian authorities.
Asked to comment, Abalos said Wesley is moving to different countries to avoid arrest.
“We always have to coordinate with other international agencies here,” he said.
Abalos assured Wesley of his safety, similar to how they secured his sisters and Ong when they were brought back to the country.
He added the Senate’s arrest order is enough to hold Wesley in custody.
“Give us an inch of anything that is legal and we will make the most out of this. We are working on our counterparts abroad to do this,” Abalos said.
He urged Wesley to surrender, noting the latter’s options to evade arrest were getting smaller.
“His circle is getting smaller, so he will be surely arrested,” he said.
Alice’s escape
The Bureau of Immigration (BI) continues to look into how Alice Guo left the country last month, including possible exits from two provinces in Luzon.
The agency said they came up with theories that the Guo siblings and Ong left the Philippines either from Batangas or La Union, according to BI’s fugitive search unit chief Rendel Sy.
It was studying the statements from Shiela before a Senate hearing, where she revealed her group traveled from their farm in Bamban for five hours on the road, then rode a “small white boat” bound for Sabah in Malaysia, according to earlier reports.
In an interview over radio dzBB yesterday, Sy said a Tarlac to Batangas trip can be done in five hours.
“We are studying this route: from Batangas, you can go to Palawan then from Palawan, you have a route to Malaysia,” he said.
BI’s other theory considers the possibility of Guo’s group fleeing the country from a resort in La Union province, where the BI caught a hacker linked to Lucky South 99.
“We went there as we have received initial reports that Alice Guo was there, but we only caught one of the bosses of Lucky South 99,” he said.
The BI previously declared Alice had no travel record before the BI, suspecting that she fled through backdoor channels.
Sy also recalled the dismissed mayor fell into the hands of authorities in Indonesia after leaving behind a case of a subscriber identity module or SIM card, used for telecommunications, in one of the hotels they booked.
Indonesian law enforcers found the SIM card was active, he noted.
He commended the Indonesian police and immigration personnel for their efforts to tail the Guo sisters and Ong.
Sy also apologized following the furor over some of the BI personnel taking selfies with Alice, which went viral on social media.
He asserted the photos were supposedly part of BI’s situational report but was surprised they were leaked on social media.
The smiles of the BI personnel with Guo were also “signs of relief” after Indonesian authorities turned over the dismissed mayor to Philippine custody, he added. — Ghio Ong
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