Quisumbing to sue man who 'forged' his signature

CEBU, Philippines – A resident of Mandaue City may be facing charges of forgery and impersonation of public officer for reportedly falsifying a congressman's signature to get a copy of the latter's birth certificate last December.

Cebu Sixth District Representative Gabriel Luis Quisumbing intends to file the case this week against a certain Bryan Paragele of Purok Tambis, Barangay Casuntingan.

"We were able to get some affidavits…relevant to the case and we will be submitting these to the court very soon," Quisumbing told reporters yesterday.

Quisumbing said his camp was alarmed after receiving reports that Paragele allegedly used an authorization letter supposedly signed by "Gabriel Luigi Quisumbing" in order to be issued copy of the lawmaker's birth records at the National Statistics Office.

The letter was dated December 14, 2015.

Quisumbing further accused Paragele of writing a document which purportedly made it appear as if he requested for the birth records of his parents.

A certain "Gabriel Romualdez Quisumbing" supposedly signed on behalf of "Louie Quisumbing" and "Betsy Romualdez," nicknames of the congressman's parents, Luis and Elizabeth.

Luigi denied recently signing any document for the release of his or his family's birth certificates.

After receiving such reports from an informant, he then reported the incident to the Casuntingan Police Station.

He said he also asked the NSO for a letter explaining why it supposedly released the documents, as well as closed-circuit television camera footages on the day Paragele supposedly walked into the office.

"The NSO has pledged for a full cooperation. They considered this also to be a breach of their own security system. They certainly want to make sure that they could tighten up their system so that this will not happen again," Quisumbing said.

Quisumbing said that though he did not feel threatened because he had nothing to hide from the public, he was still concerned with how private individuals' rights can be intruded.

He also added it was too early to tag Paragele's move to politics.

The FREEMAN obtained Paragele supposed mobile number from Quisumbing's camp, and tried to reach him yesterday to get his side on the matter. However, calls and text messages were all left unanswered. (FREEMAN)