The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has intercepted a 35-year-old woman from Sulu who attempted to depart the country using a “shared identity,” a form of identity theft that the agency says remains a recurring issue among aspiring overseas workers from far-flung provinces.
The female passenger was barred from leaving the country on Nov. 24 at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 while attempting to board an AirAsia flight to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia.
During initial processing, the passenger informed officers that she was unable to write and had to be assisted in completing her travel form.
She claimed that she is bound for Malaysia to marry her partner, a Malaysian national.
However, officers immediately noticed a suspicious 2020 Philippine departure stamp on her passport. Upon verification, the stamp was determined to be counterfeit.
Her passport and birth certificate were genuine, but the facial image on her passport did not match the biometric record stored in the BI’s system, and previous travel entries under her name bore a different image as well.
Further verification showed that the passenger’s alleged travel history did not match official records.
She also admitted to having left the country through an illegal migration corridor or “backdoor” route in 2019.
