San Juan village exec caught with fake travel passes

MANILA, Philippines — A barangay official in San Juan City faces charges after he was caught selling fake travel authority passes made in Manila’s Recto Avenue.

Leonardo Puno, the liaison officer of Barangay West Crame, was presented on Monday to media by San Juan Mayor Francis Zamora who said he was “very disappointed” as he did not think the 39-year-old village official was capable of doing anything illegal.

According to a report, the police received a tip on Sunday that a man was offering fake travel authority passes on Road 2 in Barangay West Crame.

When a police team got to the area, they spotted Puno and invited him to the police station so that they could verify the documents which had Police Lt. General Guillermo Eleazar, Joint Task Force COVID Shield commander, as the alleged approving authority.

Not a match

A check, however, showed that the names on the passes did not match the one appearing on the documents’ QR codes.

The owner of the original document was identified as Rosalie Wahing, according to the Philippine National Police’s official list of persons that had been issued a travel authority.

The document is a requirement for locally stranded individuals traveling outside Metro Manila.

Puno, according to Col. Jaime Santos, San Juan City police chief, said that the travel passes were from a certain Buboy on Recto Avenue, Manila, a place notorious for forged documents.

According to Zamora, charges of falsification of public documents would be filed against the barangay official who could also face other cases related to the violation of quarantine protocols.

/atm