A South Korean was arrested by Bureau of Immigration (BI) officers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) for trying to leave the country by claiming to be a Filipino.

Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente identified the Korean as Kwak Dong Hee, 26, who was apprehended last Dec. 28 at the departure area of the NAIA 3 terminal as he was about to board a Cebu Pacific flight to Saigon, Vietnam.

Kwak spent New Year behind bars at the BI Detention Facility in Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig where he remains detained pending conduct of deportation proceedings.

Morente said Kwak assumed the name of one Erik Nacis, purportedly born to a Korean man and a Filipina in Meycauayan, Bulacan in 1992.

But the immigration officer who processed him became suspicious after noticing he could not converse in Filipino.

According to supervisor Carlo Gomez of the BI Travel Control and Enforcement Unit, Kwak confessed during the interview his parents are Koreans and he illegally obtained his Philippine passport by paying more than P120,000 to a compatriot in the Philippines.

Gomez said it was a Korean, whose name Kwak refused to divulge, who processed and acquired the birth certificate found in his possession.

“Our records check showed that Kwak last arrived in the Philippines on Aug. 27, 2015, hence he has already been overstaying for more than three years,” Gomez added. DMS