Rep. Robert Ace Barbers. INQUIRER file photo / VINCENT F. NONATO
MANILA, Philippines — Apart from the ongoing harassment the country receives from China in the West Philippine Sea, a lawmaker claimed on Wednesday that Chinese nationals are now reportedly submitting “fake papers” to acquire government-issued documents and continuously “dumping” counterfeit drugs and other products nationwide.
“Aside from perpetually bullying us on the issue of the West Philippine Sea, the continuous dumping of counterfeit drugs and other products in the Philippines, these unscrupulous Chinese nationals are now faking documents to acquire legit government-issued documents. They are doing all sorts of schemes in our country,” Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers said in a statement on Wednesday.
The lawmaker’s claim came after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said that the Philippines would push back against China if the country’s “sovereign rights are questioned or ignored.”
He likewise warned various local chief executives and concerned agencies to stay “vigilant and hunt down” a “Chinese mafia” who was reportedly a cohort of the owner of a warehouse in Mexico, Pampanga, where authorities found P3.6 billion worth of “shabu” (crystal meth) in September last year.
“We have it on record during our investigations on the 530-kilo shabu haul in Mexico, Pampanga, that Willy Ong managed to secure a birth certificate indicating that he is a Filipino. Ong’s cohorts or the Chinese mafia who worked for him presumably was able to secure a Filipino birth certificate via ‘late registration’ with certain LGUs. With his forged Filipino birth certificate, Ong was able to secure a Philippine passport and other government-issued IDs,” Barbers revealed.
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Citing the lower chamber’s records, Barbers, chairman of the House Committee on Dangerous Drugs, said Ong managed to register his firm or real estate company – Empire 999 – with the Securities and Exchange Commission “to engage in several huge land acquisitions in Mexico, Pampanga where he and his Chinese partners built a gasoline station, four large warehouses, among others, in the province.”
Among his warehouses, there was where authorities found the billions worth of narcotics, which he said was shipped through Subic Port via a “controlled delivery involving National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents.”
Law enforcers from the NBI, Bureau of Immigration, and the Philippine National Police have since conducted a manhunt on Ong and his partners but failed to locate them.
“Ong, including his other Chinese business cohorts have made a huge mockery of the country’s Immigration, business, and other laws by acquiring government-issued documents, illegally establishing local businesses by posing as Filipinos,” Barbers stressed.
Moreover, he revealed that more Chinese nationals with forged Filipino identification cards are currently engaged in massive land acquisition sprees in Bulacan, Palawan, Zambales, Isabela, and other parts of the country. The lawmaker said they are reportedly using these areas to build “warehouses and other business fronts.”