How do you detect foreign nationals, said to be mostly from China, who were able to obtain Philippine passports through devious means?
The Department of Foreign Affairs has resorted to an ingenious way to catch those suspected of having fraudulently acquired Philippine passports by presenting genuine birth certificates from the Philippine Statistics Authority and government-issued identification cards.
How? By asking them trivia questions from local show business.
The DFA Office of Consular Affairs says since some of the suspected impostors can speak Filipino, their front-liners have devised their own methods to find out whether applicants are really Filipino as their documents claim.
They ask those foreigners applying for new passports or renewing expired ones such questions as “Who is the Superstar’s love team partner?” “Name one of the Megastar’s songs.” “Who is the Star for All Seasons?”
These questions, the DFA said, are not likely to be answered at all by those suspected of having obtained fraudulent documents.
Foreign nationals posing as Filipinos manage to get genuine PSA birth certificates because they can file for late registration of birth at the local civil registrar’s office.
The DFA has therefore begun to actively engage with law enforcement agencies, such as the Bureau of Immigration and the National Bureau of Investigation, to file criminal charges against the foreigners.
The DFA is on the right track in plugging the cracks in the system so that they can keep the situation from going from bad to worse.
The DFA believes, for instance, that it must be very expensive for foreigners to acquire genuine documents from PSA. Something fishy is going on in that agency that needs decisive action from the proper authorities.
At the main DFA consular office in Parañaque City, reports said, at least 58 Chinese nationals have been prevented from acquiring Philippine passports.
Several other consular offices around the country have reported similar attempts.
The recently convened Inter-Agency Committee on Passport Irregularities is investigating around 12 Philippine passport holders who are obviously foreigners.
Foreign nationals caught applying for Philippine passports have been blacklisted in the DFA database through their biometric information and can no longer apply in any consular office.
This is a correct response to what’s obviously an underhanded attempt to go around the rules.
Under Republic Act 8239, or the Philippine Passport Act of 1996, the penalty for making false statements in the passport application is imprisonment of between three years and 10 years, and a fine of between P15,000 and P60,000.
This law should be implemented to the letter.