THE Department of Foreign Affairs on Saturday said that it will conduct its own investigation on how 177 Indonesians got hold of authentic Philippine passports which they tried to use in going to Saudi Arabia.
“The DFA will conduct an investigation on the passport issue, just waiting for passports to be turned over by [the Bureau of Immigration] so they can be examined first hand,” DFA spokesman Charles Jose said.
Jose issued the statement after an official of the government printing office APO Production Unit said the Philippine passports carried by the 177 Indonesians are the handiwork of a syndicate.
The BI intercepted 177 Indonesians carrying Philippine passport at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport before they boarded the plane bound to Saudi Arabia.
Aside from the Indonesians, five Filipinos were escorting the Indonesians who were purportedly undertaking a pilgrimage, said BI commissioner Jaime Morente said.
Jose, who had just announced on Thursday that the DFA would start issuing “untamperable” passports on Monday, confirmed that the passports were authentike, but were illegally issued to the Indonesians.
“Those are not fake passports,” Jose said, surmising that the passports must have been provided by the group’s Filipino escorts.
The Indonesians allegedly paid $6,000 to $10,000 each to join the pilgrimage under a quota the Saudi government reserves for Filipino pilgrims.
“Other nationals who can’t be accommodated in their country’s quota, use Philippines’ quota to join pilgrimage, using spurious documents to acquire Philippine passport,” Jose added.
Jose said the DFA will conduct its separate investigation to determine who in the DFA issued the passports.
As soon as they arrested the Indonesians, the immigration chief ordered the immediate filing of immigration charges against them for misrepresenting themselves as Filipinos and for being undesirable aliens.
They are being detained at the bureau’s detention center in suburban Taguig City.
Meanwhile, APO Production Unit official Dominic Tajon said the passports are the handiwork of a syndicate.
“It is the handiwork of a syndicate. I can assure you, the passports were not original,” Tajon said.
Tajon said it would be very difficult for anyone to slip original copies of old passports because they are kept in a high-security vault controlled by the DFA.
The department had distributed the remaining old passports to different consular offices here and across the globe and has begun using the new ones.
Tajon explained that the added security features of the new passport are beyond the standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization, making it difficult to duplicate them.
The Indonesians who were bound for Medina, Saudi Arabia, on Friday were stopped by immigration authorities at the Naia when it was discovered that they could not speak the vernacular.
The interception of the 177 individuals alerted airport officials to tighten security due to intelligence reports that international terrorists were planning to enter the country through Mindanao and conduct bomb attacks.
“The new passport, which was officially launched last Monday, has additional security features which are very difficult to copy,” DFA Assistant Secretary Charles Jose told reporters in a press briefing last Thursday.
The security features of the new passport include different Philippine scenery, tourist spots and artifacts in every page of the passport.
Immigration Morente expressed surprise at the scheme, which appears to be on a much larger scale with the discovery that five Filipinos, and not two as they earlier thought, were escorting the Indonesian nationals.
The bureau also increased its vigilance against a passport racket involving foreigners who used Philippine passports to join the hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
The 177 Indonesians and their escorts were about to board Philippine Airlines Flight PR 8969 to Madinah at 12:30 a.m. Friday when the BI Intelligence Division saw through their bogus claim of being Filipinos.