Two foreigners with no immigration arrival records have been arrested by the Bureau of Immigration (BI).
Commissioner Jose Anthony Viado identified them as Indian national Ram Baldev, 43, and Australian national Peter Anthony McFarlane, 65.
Viado said the two foreigners will be included in the blacklist to prevent their re-entry and they will be deported immediately.
He said that immigration officers intercepted Baldev and McFarlane last Oct. 23 and 24, respectively, at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) before they could board their outbound flights.
“A check with our travel database later confirmed both of them have no arrival record, thus bolstering our suspicion that they are illegal entrants,” he said.
The BI said that Baldev, who was bound to Singapore, was found to have no arrival stamp on his passport.
“He claimed when interviewed that he last arrived in the country sometime in 2018 and never departed since then. BI officials suspect that he may have used a different travel document or identity during his arrival,” the bureau said.
McFarlane, who was bound for Australia, was also found with a fake arrival stamp on his passport, it also said.
“McFarlane alleged that he arrived aboard a yacht in Zamboanga City last Oct. 17 but a check with the BI’s database yielded no such record of his travel,” it added.
At the same time, the BI said that "upon checking with the BI’s forensic documents laboratory, it was confirmed that the immigration stamp affixed in McFarlane's passport was counterfeit."