Manila, Philippines – A father and son from Cagayan de Oro City were arrested by the local authorities after presenting fake Reverse Transcription – Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) results in the Port of Cagayan last Thursday, July 1, 2021.
The fake results of the RT-PCR resulted in the arrest of the two Bohol-passengers namely, Mangontawar Sacar Adiong, 57-year-old and Jeremy Adiong, 19-year-old from Barangay Iponan as identified by the cluster head of the regional epidemiology surveillance and disaster response unit, Dr. Jasper Kent Ola.
According to Dr. Ola, the provincial Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) in Bohol was informed by the Department of Health in Region 10 of the possible use of fake RT-PCR results of the perpetrators. After this incident, the provincial IATF forwarded all documents regarding RT-PCR test results to the DOH Region 10 for validation.
After the confirmation of the DOH Region 10, no records have been recorded in both Private and Government Hospitals.
To quote from Dr. Ola of the DOH Region 10,
“We have confirmed there (that) no Jeremy Adiong and Mangontawar Adiong got tested at a private hospital and we also found out that their names did not exist in the system,”
“As of now, we can’t say who made this (the fake results), if they are the ones or there’s another involved behind this. This is the first time we saw hard evidence of fake results of RT-PCR,”
Also, according to Dr. Ola, the result that has been presented by the two perpetrators was owned by another individual which was released last 2020.
The father and son are currently detained at custodial facility of Police Station 5 in Macabalan and were possibly charge against the violation of Republic Act 11332 or the “Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern Act” and falsification of documents.
Questions?
Do you have clarifications/ comments about this article? Please feel free to drop one below.