(UPDATE) IN an attempt to explain gaps in her personal history, embattled Bamban Mayor Alice Guo said on May 20 that she was the "love child" of her father and a domestic helper who left them when she was still young.

"I was kept in a hog-raising farm where I grew up and was deprived of learning things outside," she said in Filipino in a statement emailed to The Manila Times.

She said what she told a Senate panel was true, that she was homeschooled, which explained her lack of a diploma or any document to show that she completed a formal education.

"In fact, I was already a teenager when I learned about my mother when my birth certificate was late-registered," the Bamban mayor said.

Guo admitted that she was traumatized when the senators grilled her about her personal life, a thing that she wanted to keep to herself.

She added that her failure to respond to some queries posed by the senators was due to her reluctance to drag her 70-year-old father into the controversy.

Guo again denied any personal involvement in the illegal Philippine offshore gaming operation (POGO) in her town, and insisted that questions about her citizenship were misplaced because she is a Filipino "in heart, mind and deed."

Guo said she never acted as a protector of its illegal operations.

"I also never received reports, being the town mayor, about the criminal activities or any violations inside the raided POGO hub that is being run by Zun Yuan Technology Inc. which was licensed by Pagcor (Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.)," she said.

Had there been complaints reported to her office about any illegal activities inside the POGO hub, she would have acted on them without delay "because that is my sworn duty to my constituents."

Guo said she approved the permit for the Zun Yuan to operate in her town after she was shown documents and a license issued by Pagcor.

"Owing to its operation in my municipality, over 200 families have been benefiting from it through employment," she said.

She then apologized to government officials and the senators for her confusing answers during the Senate hearings.

She said she understood why the senators got angry with some of her answers.

"I could not blame them because they would not know that the answers they were supposed to be expecting from me were the same things that would freshen up the wounds of my childhood," Guo said.

Lastly, the 38-year-old unmarried Guo said she was hopeful that her mother would come out and identify her as her child and "eventually stop doubts and suspicions that I am a spy (of China)."

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