The proliferation of fraudulently-issued government documents could negatively impact Philippine-issued passports in the international community, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano warned on Monday, August 5.

Cayetano pointed this out as he questioned the reliability of the country’s identification system during the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee’s hearing on the unauthorized proliferation and use of government documents by foreign nationals.

Cayetano particularly grilled law enforcement officials over their ability to scrutinize the authenticity of a passport which he noted could be obtained practically by any foreign national who wish to take advantage of the lenient identification processes within government agencies.

“There are so many nationalities that fake our documents just so they can obtain Philippine passports but those who helped produce fake passports are not prosecuted,” said Cayetano, former foreign affairs secretary during the term of president Rodrigo Duterte.

“Others directly make fake passports, others use fake documents so they can get real passports,” he noted, citing as an example the arrest of Indonesian nationals who carried fake Philippine passports in order to join a Hajj pilgrimage.

“Both are alarming as the other. Because now the international community will not trust the Philippine passport,” he lamented.

At the same time, Cayetano said it is imperative that law enforcement authorities tighten the monitoring and strengthen efforts against scams and cyber-crimes.

His sister, Sen. Pia Cayetano, chairperson of the blue ribbon committee, also stressed the need to put stringent policies in place to stem the unauthorized proliferation and use of government documents such as live birth certificates, passports and tax identification numbers (TIN) by foreign nationals.

During the hearing, it was disclosed that thousands of security papers provided to some local offices of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) were lost or stolen.

The lawmaker noted that as of March 21 of this year, the top local civil registers with the most number of fake birth certificates are from Manila, Caloocan, Quezon City, Pasay City and Pasig City as submitted by PSA.

“This is verty concerning as it highlights the vulnerability of our Civil Registration System. A birth certificate is not just a document. This serves as a proof of our identity as a Filipino and the source of our rights,” Cayetano said.

“The birth certificate is really one of the main proofs of identification when applying for other government identifications for school, for employment, marriage license, voter’s registration and even certificates of candidacy,” she further said.

Echoing her brother’s stand, Pia Cayetano warned that the proliferation of fraudulent birth certificates compromises the credibility of many government-issued documents and the registration processes in the country.

“Foreigners—mostly Chinese nationals—who fraudulently acquired their Filipino citizenship would effectively pose a threat to national security,” she warned, citing the case of suspended Bamban Mayor Alice Leal Guo.

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) had earlier discovered that Mayor Guo, who is facing charges of human trafficking and involvement in illegal Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO)-related crimes, and a certain Chinese national named Guo Hua ping is just one person, based on the results of a fingerprint examination.