Big security breach: 50,000 Chinese got Phl citizenship

The NBI is investigating a syndicate behind Filipino birth registrations of 50,532 Chinese. “A grave security breach,” NBI director Melvin Matibag said before meeting with concerned agencies last week.

“Our national registry has been compromised,” Matibag told Sapol-dwIZ Saturday. The 50,532 adults, mostly Chinese, fraudulently got birth certificates to become Filipinos.

Among countless security perils are:

• Aliens will be able to acquire lands and mines, and run schools and media in breach of constitutional bans;

• Aliens can infiltrate the 155,000-strong AFP to weaken Philippine defense against sea, air and land intruders;

• Aliens can enlist as policemen, coastguards, firemen, prison and jail guards and mappers;

• Aliens can run for and destabilize 354,000 national and local elective positions, from president, Congress, provinces, cities, municipalities to barangays;

• Aliens can penetrate the 29,500-strong judiciary;

• Aliens can become constitutional commissioners on Elections, Audit, Civil Service and Ombudsman;

• Aliens can manipulate the 2.09-million strong bureaucracy;

• Aliens can acquire Philippine passports to travel, work and study in countries where they’re barred.

Philippine Statistics Authority revealed system compromise in October 2024. Assistant National Statistician Marizza Grande told the Senate that PSA had blocked 100,720 birth certificates and civil registry documents as of that month.

Of the total, 1,627 were birth certificates fraudulently obtained by foreigners. PSA endorsed 1,464 of those to the Solicitor General for petitioning for court cancellation.

Then-SolGen Menardo Guevarra said around 1,600 were from one municipal civil registry alone. He proposed legislation to authorize administrative cancellation of such birth certificates instead of tedious, expensive judicial process.

The Senate was then investigating Bamban, Tarlac mayor Alice Guo, a Chinese who concocted Filipino birth. Born Guo Hua Ping, she ran piggeries and factories of her father, who has links to the China Communist Party. As mayor, she built a P6-billion gambling-scamming hub in Bamban. She was convicted to life in prison in November 2025 for human trafficking.

PSA collates births, deaths, marriages from 149 city and 1,493 municipal civil registrars. Under 1930 Act 3753, 14.5 million were late registrations by barrio midwives.

Algorithmic audit ferreted out 50,532 “late registrants” – all aliens, Matibag said. Even genders were altered by mere electronic encoding.

Audited were files from 2010 to 2024. Red flags showed in 2016-2022, Rody Duterte’s presidency.

They first came in trickles. Chinese nationals sneaked into the Philippines via Subic Freeport. Duterte appointees mulcted P50,000 per illegal entrant. A barangay chief who initiated Duterte’s candidacy became an instant multimillionaire. His partner was a former Cabinet member from Duterte’s Davao home city.

That the aliens bribed their way in betrayed vile intentions. Some were capitalists enticed by success stories of fellow-Chinese venturers into nickel and magnetite mines. Others were jobhunters in germinant Philippine offshore gaming operations. A few were spies, plus criminals who victimized fellow Chinese.

Trickles became torrents. Duterte in 2017 opened national gateways to all sorts of Chinese. POGOs boomed under Duterte’s Chinese special economic adviser Michael Yang. Aside from Bamban, gambling-scamming centers sprouted in Porac and Clark field, Pampanga, Metro Manila, Cebu and Davao region. All employed Chinese nationals.

A father-and-son duo of immigration execs devised a “pastillas scheme” of visas upon arrival. Four dozen immigration officers at air and sea ports extorted from each illegal alien P100,000 cash rolled in white paper to look like the Filipino milk candy. The racket raked in P40 billion, Senator Risa Hontiveros exposed.

Cops, consular and labor agencies joined the fray. So did crooked lawmakers and local bureaucrats. In 2017-2020, 3.12 million Chinese gained residency, retiree, employee and student status. The 103-million population swelled three percent, Demetrius Cox wrote in Journal of Political Risk.

Senator Ping Lacson disclosed 3,000 Chinese sleeper spies. Philippine Retirement Authority granted privileges to 28,000 Chinese, 40 percent of all foreign retirees in 2020. Most were in their 30s, the age of soldiery, Senator Nancy Binay decried. Security analyst Chester Cabalza, PhD, denounced 640 Chinese exchange students, also 30s, mostly in one Cagayan private university alone.

Document counterfeiting, late birth registration and PSA file intercalation fetched up to P5 million per head, Matibag said. But syndicates preyed on poverty. Registrars in far-flung towns were bribed only P300-P3,000, sometimes just free lunch.

Last week, NBI indicted five registry personnel in North Cotabato for graft, bribery, falsification of public documents and perjury:

• Marilou Nanlabi y Gilera, registrar, Aleosan;

• Josephine C. Orillosa, administrative aide III, Aleosan;

• Herjelene C. Amas, administrative aide III, Aleosan;

• Arlene Cudal y Morales, ex-registrar, Midsayap;

• Michael Tobias y Cadungog, ex-registrar, Pikit.

Matibag is probing a syndicate once stationed in a 3,000-sqm property in Mariveles, Bataan. A Chinese couple fronted for a Duterte Cabinet member, he said.

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On Sept. 10, 2003, Davao City mayor Rody Duterte challenged journalist Waldy Carbonell to a gun duel. Angered by Carbonell’s investigation for the National Press Club of fellow broadcaster Jun Pala’s killing, Duterte said he’d use only two bullets. But Carbonell can use two loaded magazines.

Next morning at nine, Carbonell strode to the designated city plaza. Duterte was a no-show.

Today, 13 years later, Ka Waldy is still at it, exposing corruption, abuse and capitulation to foreign aggressors. He podcasts on YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/Kawal-ng-Demokrasya

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