Legarda wants birth registration of questionable 2025 candidates scrutinized

Senator Loren Legarda on Thursday suggested the Commission on Elections (Comelec), the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and the local civil registries to scrutinize the birth registration of questionable individuals who are eying elective posts in the 2025 national and local elections.

The lawmaker made the call amid the possibility of more foreign nationals, who fraudulently acquired their Philippine birth certificates, running for public office similar to the case of dismissed Bamban, Tarlac mayor Alice Guo.

"Dapat suriin ngayon ng Comelec, ng PSA, lahat ng kumakandidato, lahat ng may mga question d'yan... Trabaho yan ng PSA at ng local civil registries na tingnan sa mga kandidato sino ang mga naisyuhan," Legarda said in a press conference.

"Tingnan sino ang nag-file after October 8. Sa lahat ng nag-file...'yung mga medyo baguhan or maski na, malay mo, meron diyan reelectionist pero alam niyo parang di Pilipino," she added.

Legarda mentioned reports of local civil registries that allegedly issued authentic birth certificates to foreign nations, mostly through the process of late registration.

These reports prompted her and Senator Raffy Tulfo to file a resolution seeking a Senate investigation into certain local civil registries' issuance of birth certificates to foreigners through late registration.

"Hindi pwede mabili ang ilang mga grupo sa ahensya ng gobyerno. Yun nga ang sinabi ko, napasok na tayo ng sindikato...They are in our midst. That's a national security issue," she said.

(It cannot be allowed that certain groups buy themselves into agencies of government. That is what I have said, syndicates have infiltrated us.)

"This resolution is very important and as a senator, we should investigate it in aid of legislation. So what legislation will come out of this that we will have to assess," she added.

Senate Resolution 1200 filed last September 17 cited PSA data which showed an “alarming number of discrepancies in birth certificate registrations, including 308 instances of fake birth certificates submitted for passport applications between January and September 2023, with six of these belonging to foreign nationals who were issued Philippine passports”.

Meanwhile, Legarda said the Comelec should act to disqualify Guo in case she files her certificate of candidacy for the 2025 polls.

"Baka naman tatakbo pa yung babaeng nakakulong... Dapat hindi payagan ng Comelec... Dapat may gawin ang Comelec para i-disqualify siya," she said.

(Maybe that woman in detention decides to run... The Comelec should not allow that... it should do something to disqualify her.)

Amid concerns of more foreign nationals running for elective positions in the Philippines, Legarda also called on the public to report individuals who have dubious backgrounds.

"Magkaroon sana tayo ng hotline, Facebook page ayan. Report foreign nationals who are either in the barangay level or [Sangguniang Bayan] or [Sangguniang Panlalawigan] or mayors or whatever. Dito kailangan ng mga marites sa kada barangay," she said.

(We should have a hotline, a facebook page... this is where we need observant people in the barangays.)

"I think the Filipino people must expose and we must not suffer in silence and be victimized by another Alice Guo," she added.

Asked about the Al Jazeera documentary where Guo was tagged as a Chinese spy, Legarda said she cannot certainly tell that the dismissed Bamban mayor is indeed an agent of China, but her acts made her appear as such.

"Definitely, she is a coddler of illegal criminal syndicates like the POGO. Whether she was placed here as a spy, I don't want to assume when I don't have factual basis, but definitely she was placed here by criminal syndicates and she's been coddling them and she is part of them. But she looks like a spy, acts like one, lies like one," Legarda said.

Four of her colleagues in the Senate on Wednesday called for vigilance against individuals like Guo who are seeking elective positions.

Guo is facing a material representation case before the Commission on Elections.

A quo warranto petition has also been filed against her before a Manila court, as well as a petition to cancel her birth certificate before a Tarlac court.

These cases have been filed against her after the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) found that her fingerprints are identical with Chinese citizen Guo Hua Ping.

The search for truth as to guo's identity was pursued as the Senate investigated her supposed involvement in an illegal POGO in Bamban, where she previously held the mayoral position. —RF, GMA Integrated News