American arrested at Naia for carrying fake PH passport

MANILA, Philippines — Bureau of Immigration (BI) officials at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) have arrested an American national who tried to enter the country with a fake Philippine passport.

Grifton Medina, BI port operations division chief, said that 49-year-old Elmer Doller was apprehended on Saturday after he arrived at Naia Terminal 3 from Doha.

Medina said Doller’s fraudulent passport drew the attention of the immigration officer because the document had no security features. It could also not be scanned using the passport reader.

“He initially claimed his passport [was] genuine because his mother was Filipino. However, he later confessed that he obtained his Philippine passport from a friend in Cavite,” Medina added.

“For using a spurious travel document, he is now in our Bicutan detention center pending prosecution for violating our immigration laws,” he said.

The BI travel control and enforcement unit at Naia Terminal 1 also stopped a Filipino woman with a fake Schengen visa from leaving for Spain on Saturday.

Immigration officers became suspicious after she claimed she would be vacationing in Barcelona for 11 days. But her return ticket and hotel booking showed that she would be in Spain for just three days.

The BI forensic laboratory later certified that her visa was fake.

The woman, whose name could not be divulged due to a prohibition in the law, was turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking for investigation.