1,627 birth certificates of foreigners blocked

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) has blocked 1,627 foreign nationals’ birth certificates after finding their documents “spurious” in their late birth registration.

Sen. Grace Poe reported this to the plenary in defending the proposed 2025 budget of the PSA on Thursday.

With National Statistician Dennis Mapa beside her, Poe gave an update on the PSA’s investigation on fake birth certificates, after the Senate exposed how foreign nationals – like dismissed Bamban mayor Alice Guo – faked a Filipino identity by availing themselves of the late registration system.

The foreigners were reported to the National Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Immigration and Department of Foreign Affairs for investigation, Poe said.

Of the foreign nationals investigated, Guo and 17 others were reported to the Office of the Solicitor General to cancel their fake birth certificates.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros, who was interpellating Poe, lamented how syndicates abused the late registration system, when Filipinos in geographically isolated areas do not even have their births recorded.

According to the PSA, 14.89 million people applied for late registration of birth from 2010 to 2014.

Of the late birth registrants, the PSA is auditing the applications of 50,532 people to verify their identities, Poe said.

Hontiveros said authorities should hold accountable the public officials who turned a blind eye on foreign nationals having fake birth certificates.

“Instead of guarding the integrity of the late registration of live birth, corrupt local government officials became their accomplices in their criminal activities, allowing them to use for their crimes the sacred right to have a Philippine birth certificate,” Hontiveros said in Filipino.

Poe said the PSA has assisted 426,035 of the 1,214,531 Filipinos in their database with no birth records. The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has the highest number at 400,000 unregistered Filipinos.

But according to the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development, the number of unregistered Filipinos is actually higher at 3.7 million, which includes 1.4 million children aged 0 to 14.