WATCH: All our Teacher Rubilyn skits so far

It all started in July, when Alice Guo, at the time still the mayor of Bamban town in Tarlac, claimed she was raised on a farm and homeschooled. She hardly had any knowledge of or contact with the world outside this nondescript farm except through her teacher, whose name she could only recall as Rubilyn.

The lack of a full identity or origin story made Teacher Rubilyn — to a degree certainly less than Guo herself — a confection in many Filipinos’ imagination.

Given the extent of Guo’s web of lies...