The Bureau of Immigration (BI) expressed alarm over the proliferation of illegally acquired Philippine passports, birth certificates, and driver’s licenses obtained by foreigners with questionable records.
BI chief Norman Tansingco raised the concern in a Senate hearing, saying the rising number of Philippine passports and other documents–exclusive only to Filipino citizens–were confiscated from foreigners who were arrested for violating the country’s immigration laws.
He said the proliferation of such documents is a national security issue.
During the Public Hearing of the Committee on Finance presided by Senator Sonny Angara, Tansingco said that there were at least 10 recent cases of authentic Philippine passports used by illegal aliens.
Tansingco detailed that these foreign nationals were able to illegally acquire the Philippine documents.
It can be recalled that in April, the BI reported the case of a certain Danny Wong, who attempted to depart for Cambodia, claiming that he was of Chinese-Korean-Filipino lineage.
However, numerous red flags prompted the officers to further scrutinize his documents, which he later confirmed to have been acquired by a compatriot. He was later confirmed to be a Korean national named Kim Ho Cheol.
Earlier this month, the BI reported the arrest of Faizan Muhammad who presented a Philippine National ID.
“Their use of authentic documents make it doubly difficult to detect and arrest. But through our officers’ advanced skills, we were able to ascertain their actual identities” he added.
All aliens were charged for violation of the Philippine immigration act and were included in the BI’s derogatory list.
