Philippine court convicts former mayor of human trafficking
[November 20, 2025]
By JIM GOMEZ
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Philippine court on Thursday convicted a
former mayor, who officials say is a Chinese national, of human
trafficking charges for helping establish an illegal online gaming
complex in a northern province where hundreds of Chinese and other
foreign nationals were forced to conduct scams.
The Pasig city regional trial court in metropolitan Manila sentenced
Alice Guo to life in prison with seven other Filipino and Chinese
co-accused, and ordered them to pay a fine of 2 million pesos ($34,000)
each and compensate several trafficking victims, who filed the
complaints.
Guo denied all allegations against her and says she is a Filipino
citizen.
Vast online scam centers have flourished in Southeast Asia in recent
years, especially in the border areas of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. The
U.N. has estimated that hundreds of thousands of people have been
trapped in virtual slavery by gangs who force them to financially
exploit people around the world through false romances, bogus investment
pitches and illegal gambling schemes.
In the Philippines, scam operations rapidly built vast compounds with
buildings or rented upscale offices in Manila’s financial districts and
moved around large numbers of workers by bribing authorities.
Philippine authorities allege that Guo is a Chinese national named Guo
Huaping, who faked Filipino citizenship to run for mayor of the town of
Bamban in northern Tarlac province, where she ran a sprawling illegal
scam compound near the town hall.
“They used the parcels of land and buildings to house the trafficked
workers and to force them to work as scammers,” the court said in its
decision.
Last year, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered a ban on
hundreds of mostly Chinese-run online gaming operations, which
proliferated under the administration of previous President Rodrigo
Duterte. Marcos accused the gaming operations of crimes including
financial scams, human trafficking, torture, kidnapping and murder.
Many have been raided and shut down since then, with tens of thousands
of trafficked workers rescued and sent back to their home countries. But
more scam centers remain in operation, officials said.
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Dismissed Bamban town Mayor Alice Guo arrives at a private hangar in
the City of Pasay, Philippines, early Sept. 6, 2024, following her
deportation from Indonesia. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)
“The conviction of Alice Guo, also known as Guo Hua Ping, is a
victory against corruption, human trafficking, cybercrime and many
other transnational crimes,” said Sen. Risa Hontiveros. “But it is
far from over.”
Hontiveros led televised Senate inquiries last year that exposed
underground online scam operations in the Philippines, along with
Guo’s alleged criminal involvement.
Philippine security officials and Hontiveros have said the scam
centers operated by Guo and other Chinese nationals may have also
been used for espionage by China, which has had increasingly fierce
territorial conflicts with the Philippines in the South China Sea
and has strongly opposed the presence of American forces in the
country. The Philippines is the oldest U.S. treaty ally in Asia.
“We will continue to demand accountability from every government
agency that failed in their duties, and we will continue to
investigate the full extent of Chinese intelligence operations in
our country,” Hontiveros said. “And to all others who enabled Alice
Guo’s criminal empire: the Philippines is not a playground for
exploitation, infiltration and espionage.”
Guo has not been charged with espionage and she denies any
connection to spying.
The town of Bamban is located several kilometers (miles) from a
Philippine air force base, where American forces have been allowed
to maintain a rotating presence with their aircraft and weapons
under a 2014 defense pact.
Guo was dismissed from her post as mayor last year by a state
Ombudsman, who cited grave misconduct. She fled the Philippines in
July 2024, but was tracked down in Indonesia, where she was arrested
and deported to the Philippines. She has been in detention since
last year.
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