Alice Guo = Anna Delvey
Or, how the Filipino's love for a really juicy story gets in the way of us dealing with the things that really matter... if we can even agree about what those are.
First a note. This year I wrote several essays on the Filipino experience, and now they’re all in one place… kind of. Dispatches from the 63 is not a separate newsletter, just a tag—and it makes navigation easier, for now all of those essays are easier to find in one place. Like this one!
A few weeks ago, at the National Retail Conference and Expo here in Manila, the Korean comedian (and businessman) Ryan Bang was asked about why Filipinos have such an affinity towards Korean culture. His answer was wide-ranging and well-articulated, although admittedly I was a bit starstruck by hearing him in person that I may have forgotten some of the things he said. (It helps that he’s a really funny person. I was seated beside an Indian guy who told me, “I don’t understand a word of Tagalog, but I like him!”)
But two things stood out for me. One was the shared history between the Philippines and Korea, and particularly the struggle: he cited the fact that the former sent a contingent of soldiers to fight for the south during the Korean War. (Eagle-eyed Filipinos may remember this because the old PHP 500 bill, which featured the image of political leader Ninoy Aquino, citing his work as a war correspondent during that time.) The other was the Filipino’s love of a good story, which explains the popularity of Korean dramas in these islands.
That does track. I don’t suppose it’s a unique thing among Filipinos, but it helps one understand why certain issues or stories preoccupy us more than others. It’s a perspective shaped by, among others, our media consumption habits, from the movies and comic books of the American colonial period, to radio and, eventually, television over the last few decades. There’s a reason why, amidst the constant handwringing in some corners about the decline in morals on our television screens, the most enduring television dramas tend to have an element of scandal sprinkled atop the prerequisite romance.
Just look at what is being shown nowadays: Widow’s War, a pulpy crime drama centering on two feuding women; Pamilya Sagrado, a family drama wrapped in layers of intrigue; Lavender Fields, a “revenge-serye”. Despite flashy production values and somewhat high-concept settings, those shows have some very familiar elements: a protagonist fighting against a system—whether that be familial or societal—that put them down, and an antagonist seeking to maintain the status quo. (And, of course, romance. Lots of it.) But the mythology should not be deep and complicated. One can enjoy tracing family trees to understand the motivations between the characters—who’s Moises’ dad again?—but you can’t have procedural and bureaucratic complexities.
That also explains which news stories Filipinos are hyperfixating on. We talk a lot about corruption in government, but not so much the complexities of the issue. It all boils down to “elect the right leader!” and that should solve everything. So, nobody really discusses policy—viewers don’t ask for it, and news organizations don’t provide it. What we have instead are stories between two opposing forces, somehow now burdened with the task of representing a complex societal issue.
Take the fortunes of religious leader Apollo Quiboloy. The self-proclaimed “Appointed Son of God” was a benign presence for decades until he threw his weight (and his burgeoning media machinery) behind fellow Davaoeño Rodrigo Duterte when he successfully ran for president. When the former president railed against left-leaning personalities as the reason behind the woes of the country, Quiboloy followed suit, devoting his “news channel” to very skewed stories about how it’s the communists that are ruining the Philippines he so loves. Even now that Duterte has left power, his media outfits have followed the Fox News template, pretty much transforming into a megaphone for the former president, with him and his acolytes getting their own shows and offering predictably skewed commentary.
Now, Quiboloy is wanted in the United States for charges of human trafficking and money laundering, among others. Those allegations have been around for years, but have taken a head after the rupture of the political alliance between current president Bongbong Marcos and Duterte, whose daughter Sara is currently vice president. Quiboloy went into hiding, alleging the president is plotting to have him killed; the Senate, which is investigating the allegations against him, cited the pastor in contempt for refusing to appear in hearings.
The Philippine government would eventually file their own charges against him—complete with a PHP 10 million bounty, supposedly put up by anonymous donors—which leads us to a stand-off in Davao, as the police attempted to search for Quiboloy in his compound, and his supporters, claiming persecution, barricading the gates. It’s become a proxy war of sorts. There are claims of abuse of power. There’s an apology from the vice president for endorsing her running mate. There’s are buckets of an unidentified liquid.
That lasted for sixteen days. Quiboloy finally surrendered last night.
A few days prior, there was a similar development in another Filipino hyperfixation. The government found Alice Guo. Well, technically, it wasn’t the Filipinos who found her, but the Indonesians.
Guo was the mayor of the town of Bamban, in the province of Tarlac, roughly a hundred kilometers north of Manila. It’s one of those sleepy provincial towns that found itself the center of a massive gambling operation, specifically Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators or POGOs—online gambling websites based in the Philippines, but catering only to foreign individuals. It is worth noting that this was all legal, a framework designed to attract foreign investment to the country.
The number of POGOs in the Philippines rose astronomically when Duterte came to power in 2016. Nobody really noticed until Manila’s apartments and condominium buildings were filled with Chinese tenants; in some cases Filipino tenants were kicked out by landlords because the money being offered was much bigger. Social media was filled with stories of how ill-mannered they are, berating Filipino workers and spitting indiscriminately on sidewalks—as if we don’t do that ourselves.
With the Chinese already seen as less-trustworthy individuals—the stereotype of the rich, conservative Filipino-Chinese businessman persists—it was easy to build that us-vs-them narrative. It also didn’t help that Duterte, who fashioned himself as a guy who knew certain truths the establishment didn’t want you to know, was very much pro-China: he antagonized the country’s traditional allies, the Americans, and welcomed Chinese companies to help lead his “Build Build Build”infrastructure program. (There’s also the footnote of a radio program produced by Chinese state media airing in Philippine state media.) Meanwhile, the larger POGOs decided to move to dedicated sprawling facilities, where workers both lived and worked.
By the time Marcos became president—in the Philippines, no president can run for a second term—it was clear that POGOs were becoming a hotbed of crime, with human trafficking and illegal detention being common stories. (I mean, Chinese individuals being abducted from our streets.) Meanwhile, Guo—who was elected mayor in 2022, and publicly professed his support for Marcos’ run—was coming under fire for her murky past. Early Senate hearings gave us her being asked about her childhood, to which she answered, “your honor, ‘di ko na po maalala” (“your honor, I can no longer remember”), plus her sticking her tongue out for some reason. Opposition senator Risa Hontiveros drilled down on this, alleging that Guo is not a Filipino citizen—which means she cannot be an elected official in this country—and that she is probably a “Chinese agent” sent to infiltrate the government.
I’ll be honest. I haven’t really kept track of this story, but you can’t really avoid the major beats. It was found that she is one of the people behind that big POGO complex. It also turned out that, indeed, she is not a Filipino citizen, having emigrated here with her family as a child, solidifying suspicions about her past when she spoke vaguely about growing up in a farm and being home schooled. The national government removed her as mayor. The POGO hub was closed. (Marocs himself would declare POGOs illegal, and demanded they cease operations by the end of the year.) Guo would not show up in succeeding hearings because, as it turned out, she had escaped the country.
Cue blanket coverage in the media for a week or so, speculating on how she escaped (by boat?), where she escaped to (the Golden Triangle?) and who assisted her and her family to escape (we don’t really have anything on this, I think). While the Senate hearings continued—that’s its own side show—authorities quietly searched for the fugitive mayor, until Indonesian police tracked her to a hotel in Tangerang, Indonesia.
Again, I haven’t really paid attention. It’s my busiest weeks of the year and I can’t really monitor the news like I used to. But you can’t really escape this story. There is, again, blanket coverage, from the moment news broke in Manila on Wednesday morning, to later that day when Indonesian authorities formally handed her over to the Filipinos. There was rolling coverage (from the network without a franchise!) of Guo’s arrival to the Philippines in the dead of Thursday morning. And peppered throughout the day on social media were photos of her taking selfies with authorities, which was unsettling, at least to me. I mean, yes, the former mayor is young and attractive, but also, she’s under investigation for several criminal charges. You just know she’ll probably lie to you about who she is, and will gaslight you into believing you’re the one who’s wrong, so…
It does remind me of Anna Delvey’s story a bit. In case you haven’t seen Inventing Anna or generally lived in ignorant bliss, Anna Delvey—sorry, Anna Sorokin—pretended to be a wealthy German heiress to con friends and banks into funding her lavish New York lifestyle. Sure, it’s not the exact same thing, but they both somehow became media celebrities in the end. Well, the Alice Guo story is still ongoing, and there’s no telling where this will end—it really depends on how long her lawyers can delay that thing and how much political capital our leaders are willing to expend to look like they’re doing something, by focusing on what we’re hyperfixated on rather than the bigger issues lurking behind it.
But let’s be honest. There’ll most definitely be a documentary on how a Chinese citizen tricked everyone into believe she’s a Filipino citizen. Wait, no. In the Philippines, anyone can become an actor if they’re popular enough, never mind that the ultra-militants are annoyed that we’re treating Guo like a celebrity rather than a fugitive.
But really, come to think of it, all of this boils down to a hyperfixation. We feel like we’re getting something done as a nation in closing a chapter (but not a book) in the Guo saga, but have we really addressed the issue? Sure, POGOs may be officially illegal, but who’s stopping those involved from going underground? Have we even had a proper discussion about gambling, considering how online sites that cater to Filipinos this time are everywhere these days? Has it stopped Chinese aggression in the territorial waters of the Philippines? It all connects, but nobody really wants to talk about it. All we want is the story. All we want is a story that’s entertaining and makes us feel good. All we want is the good guy winning against the bad guy, never mind that we all can’t seem to agree about who is who—Marcos, Duterte, maybe Leni Robredo? Stop thinking. A good story is easy to understand and requires little thinking.
That provides an opportunity that’s easily exploited by certain people. Why bother knowing about the things that matter when you can just build your mythology and, with the right amount of luck and savvy, see people flock your way? Quiboloy calls himself the “Appointed Son of God”—there’s a lot of cultivating throughout the years to build and maintain that image. Guo made herself accessible through social media and appealed to a voting population yearning for change. The midterm elections are coming, and months before the official campaign period, we’re seeing obvious aspiring senators buy air time and billboards to build up their profile.
Meanwhile, our news programs continue to focus on the “drama” behind the story. And we continue to complain about things not really changing in the Philippines—but then, even if we aspire to be like Singapore, we don’t really want their boring news programs talking about this initiative or that plan.
Ryan is right. We do love a good story.