When news broke out recently that more than fifteen hundred fraudulent birth certificates were issued to foreigners over the years by the municipal civil registry of Santa Cruz town in Davao del Sur, a province south of the Philippines, it came as a complete shock, not only due to the scheme’s sheer audacity but also for its mind-boggling scope.

It is the kind of news that makes readers — at least those patriotic enough to grasp its national security implications —cringe with both fear and lividity at the same time.

Based on news reports, for a bribery sum of P300,000 (the equivalent of about $5,500), hundreds of unscrupulous foreigners, mostly Chinese citizens, were able to “purchase” a Filipino citizenship package that includes a PSA-caliber birth certificate, a genuine Philippine passport, and an authentic-looking Philippine driver’s license.

Yes, a brand-new citizenship for less than $6,000, cheaper than a well-worn GMT-Master watch.

Do these schemers even know how difficult it is to become a citizen of another country?

Alas, obtaining a foreign citizenship requires going through a microscopic and fine-tooth comb’s vetting of one’s complete life history to evaluate one’s qualifications and eligibility to become a loyal national of the host country.

It doesn’t happen via a single stroke of a pen by a corrupt civil registry employee.

In the US, applying for American citizenship includes the reopening and review of the applicant’s entire immigration records, checking and evaluating one’s good moral character, and vetting one’s familial history.

It also requires cross-checking the applicant’s records against all kinds of national and international security databases.

Cost-wise, the process of becoming a US citizen entails an expenditure of over $5,500, including the expenses for obtaining an initial visa and green card.

Lawyer’s fees alone can gobble up the entire $5,500.

What’s ironic is that the P300,000 bribe money is peanuts, relatively speaking, when one considers the consequential benefits to the applicant.

This is not to say that levying a higher sum makes the scheme legally palatable; a country’s citizenship is never for sale, it is supposed to be earned.

Still, P300,000 multiplied by 1,500 customers equals P453 million (or roughly $8.2 million), a scandalous amount even by American standards.

One could just imagine how much “grease money” the civil registry heads of the said municipality earned over the years, and how much bribery pies were shared with their accomplices and counterparts in other agencies.

Adding insult to injury, which makes the whole scheme reeking of treasonous designs in addition to morally bankrupt behavior, is the fact that its primary beneficiaries were people from China, a long-time maritime bully and axe-wielding “frenemy” of the Philippines.

Out of the 1,500 foreigners granted bogus Filipino citizenships, how many were Chinese nationals?

Of these, how many were Chinese spies or undercover military agents? How many were members of Chinese sleeper cells? How many were Chinese saboteurs or criminals?

Sadly, no one knows the full magnitude of the breach.

What if this is just the tip of the iceberg? What if this is also prevalent in other towns and cities throughout the country?

If so, how can the Filipinos put the “national catastrophe” genie back into the bottle?

Maybe that ship has already sailed.

Short of going after the thousands of ersatz Chinese-Filipinos and stripping them of their bogus citizenships — an impossible task given the enormity of the fraud — perhaps the only recourse left is to pivot into a damage-control mode by bringing back, as both a punitive and deterrent measure, the death penalty for treasonous crimes of the highest order.

Especially of this kind.