REP. Leah Paquiz of Party-list Ang Nars has authored a resolution to probe the so-called “Claro M. Recto University” in Manila.
If you’ve heard about this university only now, then you’ve never desperately needed a fake diploma, school transcript, identification card, license or other documents for whatever illegal purpose these may have served.
Otherwise, you might have availed of this strip of one-stop shops along Claro M. Recto Ave.
The House resolution, however, is long overdue. “Hagbaya na niana,” said my friends. True, I myself heard about “Claro M. Recto University” some 15 years ago.
So, when some new kids on the block strutted around in the campus like peacocks, but couldn’t discuss even baseline data, the comments would run, “Their diplomas might be from Claro M. Recto University.”
What were universities along Claro M. Recto Ave. doing to shut down these counterfeiters? Especially because they openly plied their trade despite being a stone’s throw away from Manila City Jail.
There reportedly were crackdowns in the past, but the business continued. Good connections with the law enforcers, perhaps, akin to peddlers of pirated movies whose “friends” tell them of raids in advance.
For P 500, a customer can own a fake diploma, a driver’s license or job references, their ticket to employment here or abroad.
And so, over 1,500 Filipino engineers, architects and nurses in Saudi Arabia who used fake documents to bag their jobs, now face criminal prosecution.
But fake documents business is obviously big money. Shamelessly, traders say an average day nets about P2,500 income. Also, they’ve gone online and use the latest technology.
In the US alone, some counterfeiters even have their own websites, like diplomasandtranscripts.com and phonydiploma.com, and announce their services. Other websites like fakediplomareviewsite.org pretend to be monitors and give “tips for purchasing fake diplomas.”
Phonydiploma.com pretends to take the high ground and refer to their productions as “novelty documents.” Naturally, they supposedly adhere to some principles like no use of real person’s names or fake signatures of existing administrators, and no copying or seals or emblems.
To continue its “novelty” business, the owners admit that their emblem designs “may look similar” to those of actual schools. And they never make fake diplomas for nursing, medical, mental-health, dental, legal, law enforcement, aviation, military or government certification or public safety professions.”
But Axact, a company in Pakistan describing itself as a global software leader, might actually lord them all, as it continues to reap millions from fake diplomas. It’s CEO, a Mr. Shaikh, posted in the company website that his goal is “to become the richest man on the planet, even richer than Bill Gates.”
Axact’s monies have come from thousands of unwitting victims like airline employees and hospital workers shelling out $ 6,000. And even professors with fake doctoral degrees in engineering technology supposedly from Nixon University and bearing the signature of US State Secretary John Kerry, for $ 12,000.
(lelani.echaves@gmail.com)