Quarantine passes latest ‘Recto U’ specialty

MANILA, Philippines — Seven people were charged on Tuesday with falsification and using falsified documents following their arrest for fabricating and selling fake government identification cards that give quarantine exemptions.

Graphic designer Johnny Perez and six other men were caught on Monday in an entrapment operation by the Manila Police District’s Sampaloc station at a small shop in a building on Recto Avenue.

The area has acquired the unenviable reputation through the years for hosting clandestine shops specializing in document forgery. Located on Manila’s University Belt, it has been derisively called “Recto University” for churning out a wide array of fake diplomas, bogus school records and even ready-made term papers.

The charges against the seven suspects were filed in the Manila City Prosecutor’s Office.

The police earlier received a tip that ID cards issued by the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) to exempt bearers from quarantine restrictions were being forged and sold by the group for P350 each.

Legitimate IDs issued by the IATF-EID identify the bearers as persons authorized to leave their residences and move around, allowing them to pass through road checkpoints.

QR codes

The IDs seized by the police have the logo of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and identical IATF-EID quick response (QR) codes. The QR codes are supposed to be unique to help the authorities match the identity of the bearer to the person authorized to carry the ID.

Police Lt. Col. John Guiagui, Sampaloc station commander, said the group might have started fabricating the fake IDs after the start of the enhanced community quarantine imposed by the government on Luzon in mid-March to stop the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Guiagui said officers seized around 50 IDs with names and addresses of persons from Manila and Quezon City, and as far away as Cavite and Laguna provinces.

They also seized a computer, printer, scanner and laminating machines from the shop that sells assorted trophies and picture frames, he said.