Fake Filipinos scandal give Chinese espionage fear in the Philippines

On May 14th, immigration commissioner Joel Anthony Viado announced the arrest of Wang Chaoxin, a 32-year-old Chinese citizen who caught as a Filipino as a management of a trading company.

The authorities also arrested four Chinese employees of Wang. The group kept three working visa, but were employed by the companies listed in their documents, while the fourth was not missing. Viado revealed that Wang had used a Filipino driver's license and a birth certificate under a fictional Filipino name to register his business according to the local media.

This is not an isolated case. Last July, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) revealed around 1,200 cases of Chinese citizens who received fraudulent birth certificates from Santa Cruz, a small town in Davao del Sur, Mindanao.

The number had grown to 1,600 by November, with most of the fake documents being output between 2018 and 2021.

The NBI has submitted 66 cases of corruption, risk reinforcement reinforcements and violations of four municipal employees, including the civil registry. Last month, the office confirmed that similar cases were examined in other parts of the Davao region.