The Bureau of Immigration on Friday warned of the continued use of “shared identities” among outbound passengers after intercepting a 35-year-old woman from Sulu who reportedly attempted to use travel documents linked to another individual.
According to the agency, the passenger was intercepted at Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 on Monday before she boarded an AirAsia flight to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia.
She was referred to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking after officers detected inconsistencies in her documents and biometric records.
While her passport and birth certificate were genuine, the facial image on the passport did not match her biometric profile stored in the immigration database. Her previous travel records also carried a different image under the same name.
“She also admitted to having left the country through an illegal migration corridor or ‘backdoor’ route in 2019,” the BI said. Officers likewise discovered a counterfeit Philippine departure stamp dated 2020 in her passport.
The bureau said such incidents indicate the use of an assumed or “shared” identity, where travelers borrow or interchange passports and documents with relatives or look-alikes for overseas travel.
Immigration Commissioner Joel Viado said this is not the first case of such a scheme, noting that some individuals, particularly from remote areas, “mistakenly believe they can share passports or personal documents with relatives to facilitate travel.”
“What they do not realize is that this is identity theft, a serious offense that can lead to criminal charges, and possible long-term harm to the real document owner,” he said.
The passenger remains in the custody of the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking for further investigation.
