CA Affirms Up To 7-Year Imprisonment Sentence to Celebrity Doctor Joel Mendez
JOEL MENDEZ – The Court of Appeals (CA) affirmed the up to 7-year imprisonment sentence of a court to the celebrity doctor.
Dr. Mendez is faced with accusations of not paying the contribution of his employees to the Social Security System or more commonly known as SSS.
In the Philippines, most employees of the private companies and sectors are insured under the SSS. They have to pay for the monthly contribution based on their salary. The company may have a share.
Often times, the contribution is remitted by the company to the social insurance institution. Not doing so may be in violation to the Social Security Act of 1997 – that is what Dr. Mendez is faced with.
Based on a recent report on Pep, in 2016, the Quezon City Regional Trial Court sentenced Dr. Joel Mendez with imprisonment from six(6) years and one(1) day to seven(7) years.
The decision penned by Judge Rosanna Fe Romero-Maglaya of the Quezon City RTC Branch 88 was over the act of the celebrity doctor of not paying for the SSS contribution of around 40 employees.
According to the report, the SSS monthly contribution that was not remitted by Dr. Joel Mendez is around Php 1.87 million – from October 2011 to January 2013.
The camp of the celebrity doctor appealed the decision of the Court in August 2018 claiming that his lawyer did not attend the hearings and he was not informed about the dates of the hearing sessions.
Recently, the CA released its decision on the appeal of Dr. Mendez. It affirmed the decision of the QC RTC stressing it was the celebrity doctor’s mistake why he did not checked on the updates of the case.
Based on the report, the decision junking the appeal of the camp of Dr. Joel Mendez was penned by Associate Justice Edwin D. Sorongon.