Alice in ‘wonderland’

Recently, some “wonderful” events have happened here in the Philippines, among which included the never-ending saga of a “simple” individual who happens to be the elected mayor of a “simple” town called Bamban, in Tarlac province.

Another series of “wonderful” incidents also continues to baffle many of us—that of the “never found” fugitive, the Almighty Apollo Quiboloy, who remains at large. It is truly “wonderful” why he has not been found after reported attempts by national authorities to look for him. But did they really look for him? Or perhaps they have found him but chose not to disclose this upon orders of someone closely associated with him? I wonder. My associates at work rejoined my thinking aloud on these issues by saying: “Only in the Philippines do we have many ‘wonderful things,’ including voting for someone who has been jailed for some anomalies!”

This time I focus more on the wonderful case of this simple woman called Alice, who just happened to be mayor of a Philippine town, and who, as of this writing, continues to make people wonder about who she really is, where she comes from, and why after claiming that she is a simple person, continues to flaunt her wealth in social and mainstream media. She claimed she was born on a farm to a woman she cannot even recall exactly who. But it is also another source of wonder how she does not have school records and that she just received education from those around her, notably her “servant” mother. Moreover, she cannot recall all of her childhood, nor how she was only able to get a birth certificate at 17 years of age. Truly, if there is such a source of endless wonder, more of the negative kind, it is this woman who continually defies logic with her nonsensical answers that put us all in a “wondering” mode. Is this a real person speaking or just a creature of artificial intelligence (but in this case, the second part of this phrase is a contradiction of terms)?

The saga of Alice Guo, elected mayor of Bamban, Tarlac, would have turned Lewis Carroll in his centuries-old grave. Carroll was the English novelist and poet who wrote two popular children’s books: “Alice in Wonderland” (1865) and its sequel, “Through the Looking Glass” (1871). Growing up, I relished reading these two fictional narratives of a little girl who experienced being transported to a magical place, filled with creatures that aroused her curiosity and of course, her sense of wonder, thus the title of Carroll’s original work. Alice’s adventures in Carroll’s fictional wonderland became my respite from having to work hard early in life to get a good education.

But unlike Alice’s adventures in the pleasant version of wonderland, this mysterious mayor seemed to have unraveled some ghosts of her equally baffling past filled with several inconsistencies and other dubious claims of her real identity and how and why she became associated with Chinese-based offshore gaming syndicates. I also wonder whether she has the same protector as the country’s foremost “wonderful” pastor and now fugitive, Quiboloy.

All the publicity this “simple” woman is enjoying now—mostly negative—might later on yield positive results for her.

As some public relations persons tell me, both positive and negative publicity is still publicity, part of what they sometimes call “noise marketing.” Individuals who are featured in this type of marketing strategy easily get people to recall their names, and probably will contribute to their “winnability” in a national election.

Is it possible that Guo is doing all these purposely to make herself more widely known, the better for her to venture into being elected not for just a “simple” local elective post, but perhaps a national one? I hope she does not have this insidious motive, although this is already quite obvious in what she is doing now.

I wonder why Filipinos as a voting population are known to be forgiving and forgetful, especially of events and matters that are supposed to enrage us as a people. These traits could be positively viewed, especially when we are called upon to “move on,” from a dark and violent past of massive cases of human rights violations and of marginalization through land dispossession. But these are just too much for many Bangsamoro to forget, and even more to forgive—especially the one who made all these happen. These two atrocities were perpetrated during the dark years of martial law under Ferdinand Marcos Sr., the father of President Marcos.

Like the Alice Guo phenomenon, the election of many other public officials and their suspicious activities continue to be a source of wonder in the Philippine wonderland.

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