Singer attacked by robbers mulling charges vs hospital execs

A professional singer who was robbed and wounded in an attack in Mandaluyong City last week is bent on filing charges against the management of the private hospital where he was treated after he accused them of giving out his personal information, including his address, to  media.

Joel Mendoza, 44, a recording artist for Viva Records, told the Inquirer that he was studying what charges to file against officials of Dr. Victor R. Potenciano Medical Center in Mandaluyong City, whose disclosures, he said, made him vulnerable to “retributory violence” from his attackers.

Mendoza added, however, that he was not pressing charges against some 10 tabloids that published his complete address, saying that what they did was part of the “freedom of expression.”

Mendoza came away with six stitches in the head after two men attacked him as he was about to board his vehicle parked on Libertad Street

in Mandaluyong City last Wednesday.

His driver, Arnold Joseph Raflores, came to his rescue but the two robbers managed to escape with the victim’s valuables worth around P20,000.

Senior Supt. Florendo Quibuyen, Mandaluyong police chief, later identified the suspects as Arvin Ordoño and an alias JR.

He said the two were in the Philippine National Police’s rogue gallery and had been involved in several other attacks on individuals, including an ABS-CBN employee and her companion last year.

Quibuyen said charges of robbery with frustrated homicide would be filed against the robbery suspects next week although they had yet to be arrested.

According to Mendoza, he was “100 percent” sure it was the hospital that provided the information published in the newspapers as a check of the hospital admission form showed that the error made in the spelling of the name of the building where he lived was also carried by the tabloids.

“Was that a coincidence? Now you tell me,” Mendoza said. He added that the media could not have gotten the information from the police since the reports were published even before investigators were able to get his personal details.

According to Mendoza, as a result of the disclosure, he and his driver could not help but fear for their lives.

He added that he was supposed to file a complaint against the robbers last week but he postponed it because he was scared to leave his house.

Reached over the phone, Virma Vergel de Dios, the hospital administrator, said it was Mendoza’s right to press charges against them although she emphasized that it had not yet been confirmed whether the leak had indeed come from the hospital.

She said that initially, the security officer of the hospital told her it was Raflores who kept on releasing information to media.

She was quick to add, however, that she was already conducting an investigation into the matter and would submit a report next week.