Philippines' deported ex-mayor Alice Guo arrives home from Indonesia

MANILA (Reuters) -Former Philippines mayor Alice Guo, accused of ties to Chinese criminal syndicates and laundering more than 100 million pesos ($1.79 million), arrived in Manila early on Friday after being deported from Indonesia.

Guo, also known as Chinese national Guo Hua Ping, was arrested by Indonesian authorities on Wednesday after leaving the Philippines in July. She is wanted by the Philippine Senate for refusing to appear before a congressional investigation into her alleged criminal ties.

Philippine law enforcement agencies, including the anti-money laundering council (AMLC), have filed several counts of money laundering against Guo and 35 others with the justice department.

Guo, who says she is a natural-born Philippine citizen, has denied the accusations, calling them malicious. She was deported from Indonesia for violating immigration laws, Jakarta's immigration office said on Thursday.

The former mayor arrived in Manila on a private plane flanked by Philippine law enforcement authorities, including the country's interior minister, Benjamin Abalos Jr., who led her handover from Indonesian authorities in Jakarta on Thursday.

"I have received death threats and I am asking for the help (of Philippine authorities)," Guo told a press briefing shortly after her arrival in Manila.

Abalos committed to provide security for Guo, but urged her to disclose the truth. "Disclose all the names in order to serve justice and so all this ends. That is the only way we can help her," he said.

The Senate launched an investigation into Guo in May after a raid in March by law enforcers on a casino in Bamban town, where she was mayor, uncovered what they said were scams run from a facility built on land Guo partly owned.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. urged Guo on Friday to disclose how these offshore gaming operators, locally known as POGOs, had branched out into crime. Marcos banned the online gambling industry in July.

"It will not help her at all to be evasive," Marcos told reporters. Guo is set to appear before the Senate on Monday when it resumes its investigation.

Guo became mayor of Bamban town in Tarlac province in the northern Philippines in 2022. She ran as a Filipino citizen but her fingerprints were later found to match those of a Chinese national, Guo Hua Ping, the National Bureau of Investigation said in August.

In August an anti-graft office removed her as mayor on the grounds of grave misconduct over her alleged ties to illegal gaming operations in Bamban.

($1=55.98 Philippine pesos)

(Reporting by Mikhail Flores and Adrian Portugal; Additional reporting by Stanley Widianto in Jakarta; Editing by Michael Perry)