171 aliens tried getting Phl passports

More than 100 foreign nationals had attempted to apply for a Philippine passport since November last year, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Thursday.

During the deliberations on the DFA budget by the Senate Committee on Finance Subcommittee G headed by Senator Loren Legarda, Assistant Secretary Adelio Cruz of the Office of Consular Affairs said the office was able to prevent 171 individuals with questionable nationalities from obtaining Philippines passports.

“We are proud to say that since November last year we were able to prevent the application of questionable nationalities applying for Philippine passports,” Cruz told the Senate panel.

“More than 171 attempts had been prevented by the Office of Consular Affairs,” he added.

Dismissed Bamban Mayor Alice Guo, who is suspected of being a Chinese spy and having links to the banned Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO), has also been accused of using fake documents to pass herself off as a Filipino.

During the Senate hearing, Cruz said the DFA is actively coordinating with government agencies such as the Philippine Statistics Authority, National Bureau of Investigation, and Bureau of Immigration to stop foreigners from obtaining Philippine passports.

Of the foiled passport applicants, he said 71 cases were referred to the NBI, while 66 passports were canceled.

Legarda asked Cruz if the foreign nationals who applied for a Philippine passport had used PSA-authenticated birth certificates. He said that in some cases they did, while in others, they did not.

He noted that most of the applicants used late-registered birth certificates.

Countermeasures

Legarda asked what countermeasures the agency was taking to prevent the reapplication for Philippine passports by foreign nationals.

“Did you refer them to the DoJ [Department of Justice]? If I were you, I would call the police to arrest them immediately,” she said.

Responding to the lawmaker’s question, Cruz said the DFA-OCA is currently in the process of forging a memorandum of understanding with the Philippine National Police.

“So wherever they apply, once we are sure that it was a fraudulent application, we can seek the assistance of the nearest police precinct,” he said.

Asked if they were able to apprehend foreign nationals who applied for Philippine passports, Cruz cited the case of a 21-year-old Chinese national who was arrested in Davao.

Last July, the NBI discovered 1,200 fraudulent birth certificates issued to foreign nationals — who were mostly Chinese — in Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur.

The bureau said the fake documents were obtained using late-registered birth certificates and were issued in 2018 and 2019.