A medical firm's former employee, who prepared and submitted 46 "falsified" claims of benefits to the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), has been convicted of falsifification of official documents. 

Convicted in a decision issued by Judge Jesusa R Lapuz Gaudiano of Pasig City metropolitan trial court (MeTC) was Svend A. Rances, a former employee of TriHDCare, Inc. 

Judge Gadiano ruled that Rances is "guilty beyond reasonable doubt for forty-six (46) counts of Falsification of Official Documents by a Private Individual under Article 172, in relation to Article 171, of the Revised Penal Code...."

Rances was sentenced to a jail term ranging from six months to three years, six months, and 21 days for each count with full credit of time spent under preventive imprisonment.

Judge Gaudiano said that Rances "shall be entitled to the benefit of the three-fold rule as provided in Article 70 of the Revised Penal Code.”

The RPC provides that when the accused has to serve two or more penalties, “he shall serve them simultaneously if the nature of the penalties will so permit….”

It also provides that “the maximum duration of the convict's sentence shall not be more than three-fold the length of time corresponding to the most severe of the penalties imposed upon him.”

Rances was also ordered to pay a fine of P50,000 per case with subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency.

“In the event that the accused is unable to pay the fine, he shall serve the subsidiary imprisonment computed at one (1) day for each day’s current highest minimum wage rate, but shall not exceed one-third (⅓) of the term of the sentence, and in no case shall it continue for more than one year, and no fraction or part of a day shall be counted against the prisoner,” the judge also ruled. 

Rances worked as a PhilHealth clerk for TriHDCare from 2016 to 2019. TriHDCare handles the operations of the hemodialysis unit of the TriCity Medical Center.

Rances was accused and found guilty for forging from 2018 to 2019 the signatures in the documents for the PhilHealth claims of patients some of whom were already deceased.

The judge noted that the prosecution presented as witnesses TriHDCare President Dr. Gjay L. Ordinal and Czareene P. Manalo, Marife P. Abonitalla, Carine L. Galban, and Zayme C. Gaerlan

Also the judge said that TriCity Med and TriHDCare conducted an investigation in 2019 after being informed that “PhilHealth had findings that claims were filed for treatments of patients... (Manila Bulletin redacted their names), when they did not actually get treated as both of them had already been deceased on the treatment dates indicated on the claims documents.”

During a meeting held by TriCity Med and TriHDCare on June 20, 2019, Judge Gaudiano said “Rances admitted that he had filed false claims with the PhilHealth in connection with patients (the deceased patients)...."

Citing the minutes of the meeting, Judge Gaudiano said: “He (Rances) made it appear that said patients had undergone dialysis treatments in the hospital on the dates indicated in the claims forms when in truth, those patients never did as they had already been deceased prior to said alleged treatment dates. Rances forged the signatures of the signatories in the claims documents."

After admitting that “he (Rances) also filed false claims for other deceased patients,” Judge Gaudiano said that Dr. Ordinal also ordered TriHDCare to conduct an audit to find all the false claims.

“To their surprise, claims for 10 other deceased patients were entered to PhilHealth by the accused,” the judge said. 

"They (dead patients) could not have possibly signed any document, which leads to no other conclusion than that their signatures in the subjects documents were forged," the judge also said.