Leaders of the House quad committee turned over on Monday a voluminous of “critical documents” to the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) as they pressed it to pursue legal actions, including a civil forfeiture case against Chinese nationals accused of using fraudulent Filipino citizenship to illegally acquire land and operate businesses in the country. 

Chair Ace Barbers said the objective of the submission of the previous probe findings is to prompt the OSG to conduct its own investigation for possible forfeiture proceedings in coordination with other state agencies.

"A lot has been discovered. Chinese nationals purchased huge amounts of land here [and] we know that the Constitution prohibits foreign nationals from acquiring 100 percent ownership of our lands and building corporations,” Barbers said Filipino in a press conference held after the turnover ceremony.

Aedy Tai Yang, one of the central figures in the case, is a Chinese suspected of falsifying documents to obtain Filipino citizenship and circumvent foreign ownership laws, allowing him to illegally acquire land and set up businesses in the Philippines.

Yang was also implicated in the P3.6 billion shabu bust in Mexico Pampanga in September last year as one of the owners of the Empire 999 Realty Corporation, the warehouse wherein the narcotics were seized.

The submitted documents include Yang’s Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA)-issued birth certificate from 23 August 2004, despite his claim of being born on 19 January 1983. 

Based on the papers, certification from the Municipal Civil Registry of San Antonio, Nueva Ecija, indicated that Yang’s registration records are unavailable due to a fire.

Further evidence includes certifications from the PSA on Yang’s marriage, tax declarations for properties in his name, and corporate records linked to him, such as those from Empire 999 Realty Corp. and Sunflare Industrial Supply Corp, which are both reportedly tied to suspicious land acquisitions. 

Records from the Land Registration Authority (LRA) reveal these properties are owned by Empire 999’s incorporators.

Further, the committee also presented documents of land deals between Yang and the local government of Mexico, supported by memorandums of agreement, deeds of sale, and municipal resolutions that purportedly bypassed legal processes.

According to quad comm, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) confirmed that some of the lands sold by Yang did not undergo the required conversion process, highlighting the illegal nature of these transactions.

In urging Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra to initiate a legal case, the panel highlighted the said actions as “blatant violations of our laws,” which necessitates “immediate executive intervention.”

Failing to address the said violations could have dire consequences for national security and the economy, it added.

“We trust your office will prioritize this matter and act swiftly to protect the integrity of our nation’s legal and economic systems,” the panel stated.

The committee suggested that the OSG should work with LRA, DAR, PSA, Securities and Exchange Commission, Bureau of Internal Revenue, and the Department of Justice to ensure a thorough investigation and legal enforcement.

The document handover is part of the quad comm’s broader investigation into criminal activities, such as Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators, the drug trade, land grabbing by Chinese nationals, and extrajudicial killings, which flourished during the Duterte administration.