A 19-year-old Asian American solo pilot addressed Filipinos’ questions about whether he is related to dismissed Bamban Mayor Alice Guo due to their similar names.
Ethan Guo, a teenager aspiring to be the first person to fly solo to all seven continents in a small aircraft, was featured by a news outlet on Instagram on Saturday, October 19.
ABS-CBN News posted a picture of him flying a 50-year-old Cessna 182 Skylane and reported that he landed in Manila from Davao on Thursday, October 17.
The update added that Ethan is set to fly to Japan next.
The full report can be accessed by clicking the link to the news outlet’s Instagram bio.
The comments section of the post was filled with Filipinos wondering if the teenager is related to Alice, given their shared last name.
“Family name ‘Guo’ then came from Davao to Manila… maybe going to Bamban after Japan,” an Instagram user wrote, referring to the Tarlac town Alice had run as its mayor.
“Kaano-ano [niya] si Alice?” another user commented with laughing-with-tears emojis.
“Guo? Is he connected with Alice Guo,” a different user wondered with the same emojis.
Ethan saw the comments and addressed the questions on the same platform.
“[I’m] not related to Alice Guo,” he wrote, earning over 1,000 likes so far.
Some Filipinos thanked him for the clarification, while others found the situation “funny.”
“For everyone’s peace of mind,” an Instagram user responded to him with laughing emojis.
“Thank you for the clarification,” another online user commented with similar emojis.
According to ABS-CBN News, Ethan visits hospitals and meets with doctors and researchers during flight stops to learn more about the fight against cancer.
Apart from breaking a world record through his solo aviation initiative, he aims to raise $1 million for cancer research, sharing that it is for his cousin diagnosed with stage four blood cancer.
“I want to use every opportunity to raise awareness of childhood cancer and the necessity to increase research efforts to find prevention and treatment methods,” Ethan said on his website.
“The whole goal is to get people’s attention by doing something interesting, and then use that attention to bring awareness to a cause that’s even more important,” he was quoted in the report.
Ethan has so far flown to the continents of North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. His next stops are South America and Antarctica.
The other Guo
Meanwhile, Alice is a former official whose fingerprints were revealed to match those of Chinese national Guo Hua Ping.
She is facing charges of graft, qualified human trafficking, money laundering, and tax evasion.
Alice is suspected to have links with Lin Xunhan, the so-called “big boss” or “kingpin” of illegal Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) in the country.
Illegal POGOs have since been associated with scams, torture, and human trafficking.