Fake IDs proliferate in troubled areas amid ML enforcement

LANAO DEL SUR --- Authorities warned to arrest peddlers of fake identification cards to residents of troubled areas required to bring along credentials when they move around as required by martial law.Policemen securing highways confirmed on Monday the proliferation of identification cards bearing names of pro-federalism blocs with superimposed photos of Duterte, carried by motorists and passengers of public conveyances.Lawyer Kirby Abdullah, local government secretary of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), said on Monday that they are also validating now the reported issuances by unscrupulous barangay officials to evacuees from Marawi City of residence certificates at prices ranging from P100 to P300, in total disregard of income brackets as basis for the charges. All of these are being checked now. It seems there are unscrupulous people taking advantage of the situation, Abdullah said on Monday.The provincial police director of Maguindanao, Senior Supt. Agustin Tello, and his counterpart in Sultan Kudarat province in Region 12, Senior Supt. Raul Supiter, on Monday separately appealed to the public not to use ID cards from non-existent groups taking advantage of the martial law to earn money. Besides the regular residence certificates, our men will only honor school and office IDs and those issued by the Social Security System, the Government Service Insurance System, the Pag-Ibig and Philhealth, Tello said.Supiter said he has issued a directive to all police municipal police precincts under his jurisdiction to warn the public not to deal with groups selling fake IDs. These highly questionable IDs cannot be used as clearance in checkpoints even if they bear photos of President Duterte, Supiter said.Chief Supt. Reuben Theodore Sindac, director of the Police Regional Office-ARMM, said personnel of the Lanao del Sur provincial police will also look into the issue.Sindac said it is likely that groups had hoodwinked their victims from areas besieged by Maute and Abu Sayyaf terrorists with a guarantee of safe passage through checkpoints if they use the IDs they peddle.Abdullah said the Department of the Interior and Local Government-ARMM has directed all local government units in the autonomous region to ensure that residents in all barangays have proper identification credentials to avoid getting into trouble with authorities enforcing the Mindanao-wide martial law. Any barangay official proven to have charged exorbitant fees for residence certificates to evacuees from Marawi or from anywhere in Lanao del Sur shall be prosecuted to the fullest extent of law, he said.Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez, Jr. of the Western Mindanao Command told this news outfit Monday that military intelligence units are now helping address the problem.