The city government here has won its first legal case against a person who presented a fake reverse transcription – polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test result upon arrival at the Davao International Airport (DIA) in February this year.
In a statement Friday, Angel Sumagaysay, head of the Public Safety and Security Command Center (PSSCC), said Lloyd Alipin Abarquez was sentenced by Judge Catherine Guerzo-Barrion of the Municipal Trial Court in Cities (MTCC) Branch 4 to pay PHP5,040 after pleading guilty to Section 9 of Republic Act 11332 or the “Law on Reporting of Communicable Diseases”, and Davao City Ordinance 0466-21 series of 2021 or “An Ordinance Penalizing Persons Using or Producing Falsified or Tampered Covid-19 Medical Test Results or other Health Verification Documents in the City of Davao”.
Abarquez was apprehended at the DIA on February 27 after he presented an RT-PCR test result without supporting documents, such as receipts and e-mail from the swabbing center.
“While the accused was only fined PHP5,040 after pleading guilty, the criminal offense will appear in his records on the police clearance, National Bureau of Investigation, and court clearance,” Sumagaysay, who represented the city in the case, said.
He said the filing of the case commenced after verifying that the swabbing center that supposedly issued the RT-PCR result could not find Abarquez’s name in its system.
The conviction, he said, only shows how serious the city is in apprehending people falsely representing their health status and in protecting the public from any harm caused by these people in the time of the pandemic.
“The efforts of our personnel and the police primarily assigned at the airport were not wasted and the city government was represented by PSSCC, which helped file the case. At least we can attest that we really push the filing of cases against these violators,” he said.
This is the first of the 159 cases filed by the city government through the PSSCC.
Of the 159, a total of 145 cases were filed through inquest and 14 through regular filing.
Source: Philippines News Agency