(PNA file photo)
MANILA – The Bureau of Immigration (BI) on Tuesday said reports of foreign nationals illegally obtaining Philippine passports and other documents here are considered "a national security issue".
“Their use of authentic documents makes it doubly difficult to detect and arrest,” BI Commissioner Norman Tansingco said in a statement.
During the Senate hearing for the 2024 National Expenditure Program of the Department of Justice and its attached agencies on Monday, Tansingco disclosed multiple foreigners possessing passports and other Filipino documents like birth certificates, driver’s licenses, and postal IDs.
"This year alone, we already intercepted about 10. Genuine Philippine passport but fake na tao (individual), fake Filipino," he said.
"Hindi marunong mag-Tagalog, iyong itsura. Usually ang sagot ay binigay na lang sa kanila (They don't know how to speak Tagalog, their faces are different. Usually, the alibi they're using was just handed to them)," Tansingco said.
Just this month, the BI arrested a certain Faizan Muhammad who presented a Philippine National ID.
Before this, another Korean National Kim Ho Cheol was also intercepted following his attempt to depart for Cambodia pretending to have a Chinese-Korean-Filipino lineage.
Tansingco, meanwhile, vowed to observe strict measures in cracking down on aliens using illicitly-secured documents.
“But through our officers’ advanced skills, we were able to ascertain their actual identities," he said.
Consequently, the involved foreign nationals could face charges for violation of immigration rules, and may be banned from entering the country following deportation. (PNA)
