A woman was stopped from boarding her flight to Malaysia at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) after she was found using the identity of another person, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said on Friday, Nov. 28.

BI Commissioner Joel Anthony M. Viado did not identify the woman who was intercepted by immigration officers at the NAIA Terminal 3 last Nov. 24.

“Using someone else’s identity, or allowing others to use yours, puts you and your family at risk,” Viado said.

He warned that “our officers are trained and equipped to detect impostors, and we will continue to stop individuals attempting to travel under fraudulent circumstances.”

The BI said that during the initial processing of her travel documents, “the passenger informed officers that she was unable to write and had to be assisted in completing her travel form.”

It said that the woman told immigration officers that she was bound for Malaysia to marry her partner, a Malaysian national.

However, the BI said the officers noticed a suspicious 2020 Philippine departure stamp on her passport and upon verification, the stamp was a counterfeit.

It also said: “Further verification showed that the passenger’s alleged travel history did not match official records. She also admitted to having left the country through an illegal migration corridor or ‘backdoor’ route in 2019. Although her passport and birth certificate were genuine, the facial image on her passport did not match the biometric record stored in the BI’s system, and previous travel entries under her name bore a different image as well.”

“These findings strongly indicate that she was using an assumed or ‘shared’ identity, a scheme in which individuals borrow or interchange documents with relatives -- often believing that resemblance or family ties will help them bypass formal travel requirements,” it added.

The woman has been turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) for further investigation.