Three foreigners apprehended at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) for using fake passports have been deported, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said on Tuesday.
BI Port Operations Division Chief Grifton Medina said the foreigners were intercepted in separate operations at NAIA terminals 1 and 3 and were barred from entering the country.
Medina said Kiribati national Eliezear Mercy Obiora was accosted at NAIA terminal 1 last Oct. 4. Meanwhile, Senegalese nationals Jonas Mendy and George Mendy were apprehended at NAIA terminal 3 last Oct. 8 and 11, respectively,
He added that the foreigners were booked on the first available flights back to their homelands and were also placed on the Immigrations’ blacklist after their arrest.
BI spokesperson Dana Krizia Sandoval said the biographical pages of the foreigners’ passports were altered as examined by the Immigration’s forensic document laboratory.
Sandoval added that the foreigners could not explain their purpose in entering the country when interviewed by officers from the BI Travel Control and Enforcement Unit.
“They did not have any clear idea on what to do and where to go once they got into the Philippines, and they were also deemed to be likely to become a public charge,” Sandoval said.
She also asserted that the foreigners could be using the country as a “jump-off point” to other countries.
“We suspect that this is an attempt to use the country as a jump off point to other first world countries,” she said. /ee