Celebrity doc out when cops, SSS came knocking

Authorities failed to arrest celebrity doctor Joel Mendez at his Quezon City home on Thursday over his alleged failure to remit the Social Security System (SSS) contributions of his 40 employees amounting to P1.8 million.

Members of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) and SSS officers were met only by Mendez’s household staff when they served an arrest warrant at his residence on Pugo Street, Barangay Talipapa, around 11 a.m.

Their employer was in Cagayan de Oro City, the staff told the arrest party.

Mendez, a cosmetic surgeon known for having a celebrity clientele, faces charges for violating the SSS law and had a standing warrant issued by the Quezon Regional Trial Court Branch 88, according to the NCRPO director, Chief Supt. Oscar Albayalde.

The warrant showed that Mendez, president and CEO of Weigh Less Center in Cubao, failed to pay the SSS contributions from October 2011 to January 2013.

Mendez also owns spas and clinics in Makati City, San Fernando in Pampanga, and Dagupan in Pangasinan.

In 2011, he was convicted by the Court of Tax Appeals for two counts of tax evasion when he failed to file his income tax return in 2002 and falsifying his submission in 2003. In 2016, he was also convicted for not filing his ITR in 2001.—DEXTER CABALZA, RADYO INQUIRER