Antonio Viray III Buruanga District Hospital Appointment
Antonio Viray III Ibajay District Hospital Appointment
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Ibajay Hospital Chief Faked Test Result
The Daily Guardian
29 June 2007
By Jonathan Cabrera & Noel Cabobos
KALIBO, Aklan—A chief of district hospital here is in hot water for allegedly faking the result of his licensure examination which led him to head three district hospitals here since 2004.
Antonio Viray III, currently the chief of Ibajay District Hospital, remains elusive to the media since the issue came out.
Viray also headed the Malay District Hospital in Oct. 2004 to Sept. 2006 and Buruanga District Hospital from Sept. 2006 to March 2007.
Records obtained by The Daily Guardian show that Viray, who claimed to have passed the Professional Regulations Commission (PRC) Board of Medicine Physician Licensure Examination taken in Aug. 2001, actually failed the said exam.
The exam result he submitted to the Office of the Human Resource Management Office (HRMO) of the Aklan Provincial Capitol was allegedly faked.
HRMO chief Ellen Tolentino said they were not able to verify Viray’s documents with the PRC ever since the latter was appointed by Gov. Carlito Marquez.
The Civil Service Commission has a standard requirement to all government agencies to first verify with the PRC the licenses of professionals submitted to their office.
FAKE RESULT
The issue hugged the limelight when a copy of Viray’s purported examination result was furnished The Daily Guardian and RMN-dyKR.
This paper and RMN-dyKR wrote the PRC requesting verification of Viray’s exam result.
In a certification issued by PRC records division chief Elma Francisco, she confirmed that the result submitted by Viray to the HRMO was fake.
Francisco said that based on the PRC records of the August 2001 Board of Medicine Physician Licensure Examination, Viray only got a 70.50 mark which means he failed the said exam.
RESIGNED
Gov. Marquez said there’s nothing to investigate Viray already told him he had resigned effective June 1.
But HRMO records show that Viray was on vacation leave from May 28 to June 15, this year.
The Daily Guardian tried but failed to reach Viray for comment.
Playing Doctor : Antonio Viray III
Aklan Healthcare System & Political Nepotism
By Ben Hur P. Mobo, Jr. MD, MPH Assistant Professor of Medicine Yale University School of Medicine And Director, Occupational Health ServiceVA Connecticut Healthcare System
The recent news about Tonet Viray hit me with both strong sadness and utter disgust: sadness for Tonet, the person and for the Aklan healthcare system; and disgust for political nepotism at its worst.
Tonet is not a stranger to me. When I learned that he had completed his medical degree and had stayed in Aklan to practice medicine, I felt glad for him. In a way, this was my reaction to the exodus of medical practitioners to the United States and other countries to pursue higher education and hopefully better prospects in life.
I, too, left in 1995 to pursue residency in Internal Medicine, fellowship in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, and Master in Public Health. After finishing in (year) 2000, I was asked to stay on as a faculty member. But even as I moved up the academic ladder at Yale and the administrative track at the VA Connecticut Health-care System, I always kept an eye on Aklan’s healthcare system.
Thus, the news about Tonet is of interest to me—both as a practitioner of medicine and from a pubic health perspective. In general, I have the full admiration for doctors who wittingly or by force of circumstance practice medicine in the Philippines, Aklan in particular. What I cannot fathom, though, is the fact that Tonet had passed himself of as a fully licensed physician. There is no shame in admitting flunking the medical board exam. I know how difficult my board exam was. And so there should be no shame in taking it again and again if need be.
But to practice without medical license is "criminal", at least here in the United States. This is especially true in the age of advocacy for patient safety, patient privacy, and patient autonomy. To practice without valid medical license is to break the very tenet of medicine to "first do not harm". In the United States, someone who passes himself off as a duly licensed doctor is committing fraud (byimpersonating a doctor). Any person examined by someone impersonating as a doctor, in effect, did not give consent to be touched.
The whole patient-doctor relationship does not hold. Thus, with each examination, the impostor commits battery. Any and all pelvic and breast examinations, deliveries, and circumcisions can be argued as sexual assaults. All surgeries can be made out as mutilations or attempted manslaughter. And any death can be made out as homicide or manslaughter. The point is: the hospital or in this case the Aklan government might have exposed itself to multitudes of criminal and civil suits by employing an unqualified individual. On top of that, if the hospital submitted medical claims and received reimbursements for alleged services rendered by an impostor, those too can be fraudulent.
For a graduate of medical school to not re-take the medical board is a sign of either laziness or of tempting fate. I know of friends who struggled many times over just to pass the board exams. To do so is to have the self-satisfaction of calling themselves doctors and to be able to further their medical education. For someone to pass of himself as duly licensed and have the gall of applying for public office is to tempt fate.
Or he is completely relying on the utter incompetence of the creden-tialing process that wittingly or unwittingly ignores his lack of proper credentials. The Tonet I knew was a humble and self-deprecating young man. This could be a lapse of judgment.
Is Tonet the only one party to this case? Tonet was government-appointed personnel three times over. Is Aklan really in such dire shortage of real doctors as to appoint someone without license thrice? Beneath it all, could Tonet truly have passed himself off as duly licensed physician and got himself two promotions solely on his own merits and actions? Tonet’s appointments and rapid rise in the Aklan public healthcare chain must have ruffled some well-earned feathers and stepped on some well-polished toes.
Given Tonet’s very close proximity to the appointing powers, one can only speculate the significance of the issue of when politicians play favoritism or nepotism. To me, Tonet is a case of political nepotism gone awfully wrong.
In closing, just last week the Veterans Affairs secretary tendered his resignation in large partbecause of perception of inadequate health care provided to veterans and the highly publicized molds issue at the Walter Reed Medical Center. Such is the serious ramification of chain of responsibility. I submit Tonet’s case is far worse in many levels.
I call for the Aklan Medical Society to police their ranks, and for the Philippine Regulatory Commission to uphold the professional standards. I think it is also ripe time for a comprehensive investigation to look into any anomalies involved in appointments to public health offices and to rectify the mistakes made, including civil and criminal charges where appropriate. To paraphrase, a public health office is a public health trust. Let the best prevail. If not, at least let us appoint a qualified individual, not an impostor, to play doctor to the people of Aklan. /MP
Doctors’ Group May File Raps Vs. Antonio M. Viray III
KALIBO, AKLAN, PHILIPPINES—Antonio M. Viray III, the chief of Ibajay, Aklan District Hospital, who allegedly faked the result of his physician licensure examination, may face a court case.
The Aklan Medical Society (AMS) has passed a board resolution providing stricter measure in accepting members to the AMS.
In an interview with KCTV & RMN TeleRadyo tandem, AMS president Cynthia dela Cruz said the association is discussing the possibility for the AMS to file charges against erring doctors who fake their PRC documents.
She said AMS is still verifying with the Philippine Medical Association (PMA), the umbrella organization of doctors groups nationwide, if the AMS can act on cases like this.
Evelyn Ejar, provincial chief of the Civil Service Commission, said the CSC had already sent an independent letter verifying Viray’s examination result.
She added that the CSC would refer the issue to the regional office in Iloilo City to study the possibility of filing a case against Viray.
She also noted that verification of licenses lies in the hands of the HRMO.
“But although it no longer falls in our mandate, we will still verify to finally get into what possible act we can do to settle this issue,” she said.
Viray cannot be reached for comment since the controversy started. He said to have left Aklan for the United States.
A document furnished The Daily Guardian, a local newspaper, showed that Viray got a general rating of 70.50% as certified by Marilou Brilliantes, unit head-VAU of the PRC records management division and as verified by Elsie S. Julian.
In the PRC certification dated June 28, 2007, a marginal note indicated that the minimum passing general rating required for the examination taken by Viray was 75%.
Reportedly, a document passed by Viray to the Office of the Human Resource Management Office (HRMO) of the Aklan Provincial Capitol showed he had passed the said exam with a 77% mark.
Viray first worked as chief of Malay District Hospital, Buruanga District Hospital and is currently chief of Ibajay District Hospital.
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