Another fake Filipino? Malaysian caught with bogus PH passport at Manila airport

A fake Filipino at it again.

The Philippine Bureau of Immigration (BI) said today that immigration officers have arrested a Malaysian national with a bogus Philippine passport at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).

Toong Yuen Chin, 36-years-old, was nabbed at Manila’s airport on Friday, Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente said in a statement, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.

Chin attempted to leave the country for Kuala Lumpur via an Air Asia flight, Manila Bulletin reported. BI port operations chief Grifton Medina said Chin’s name in the fake Philippine passport was Jacky Cruz Chin.

An immigration officer became dubious when Chin’s passport couldn’t be encoded by the passport reader, The Manila Times stated.

“During secondary inspection, he confessed his true nationality as a Malaysian and admitted that a fixer named Lawrence facilitated his acquisition of a fraudulent Philippine passport for a fee,” Medina was quoted saying by Inquirer.

Senior immigration officer Glen Comia, who heads the BI travel control and enforcement unit at NAIA 3, said that Chin arrived in the country on July 12 last year and used his Malaysian passport, Manila Bulletin added.

“Apparently, he used the fake Philippine passport to evade payment of immigration fees and fines for overstaying in the country,” Comia said.

Other documents that were seized from Chin were a Philhealth ID and a municipal birth certificate purportedly showing he was born in Sta. Ana, Manila to Filipino parents, multiple reports state.

Chin will be prosecuted for violating Philippine immigration laws, Inquirer added.

He is currently detained at the BI Detention Center, Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City.

This comes on the heels of another case where immigration officers arrested an overstaying Korean with a fake Philippine passport on Dec. 28, the BI announced in a statement on Jan. 6.

The Korean was identified as Kwak Dong Hee, 26-years-old, who was apprehended at the departure area of the NAIA 3 terminal as he was about to board a Cebu Pacific flight to Saigon, Vietnam.

“These schemes will not pass,” Morente said in the January statement. “Our officers have a trained eye in detecting fraud. These aliens should not even consider attempting such schemes, lest they want to end up detained and deported.”