THE story of Alice Guo is, by itself, a story of unfathomable malevolence. As if it were lifted from a work of fiction, with the main plot built around the young remnants of the Nazi regime spreading out into adopted homelands using what appeared to be stolen identities, then gaining massive political and economic power to build their versions of a Fourth Reich. What happened in Bamban, Tarlac, though, is not fiction but real. The former Guo Hua Ping became Alice Guo by exploiting the cracks in our weak institutions, establishing a land development company to host Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) in her adopted town, then amassed enough wealth to win the mayoral race there, which also meant power to preside over the affairs of the POGOs her company hosted.

With her POGO-based wealth, relative youth and well-established connections to people in power, she would have encountered very few hurdles in amassing more wealth and then conquering bigger political suzerainties after Bamban. Had it not been for the vigilance of anti-organized crime operatives and two senators who showed the nation what true crusading looks like, the imposter Alice Guo could have freely roamed into the nation's bigger political arena with hardly any restraint.