CIDG chief Director Jesus Verzosa said members of the syndicate had been posing as indigent families and using fake documents to solicit charity funds from the PCSO.
Verzosa identified the suspects as Nicomedes Cortez, of Panginay, Balagtas, Bulacan; Maria Theresa Arellano; Rachelle Galino; Edna Villasin; Amancia Rovero, of Bagong Silang, Caloocan City; Ernesto Bautista; and Danilo Hipolito.
The CIDG chief said the modus operandi of the syndicate was discovered based on the complaint of PCSO chairwoman Rosario Uriarte.
The PCSO chief said that the suspects managed to get financial assistance from the agency in connivance with personnel of the PCSO, employees of the East Avenue Medical Center and of other government and private hospital, from which they were able to secure fake documents.
Acting on Uriate’s complaint, Verzosa directed CIDG-National Capital Region chief Senior Superintendent Asher Dolina to investigate and arrest members of the syndicates.
Dolina said documents seized from the suspects showed that Cortez was able to encash P108,973.74 while Bautista managed to solicit P85,000 purportedly for chemotherapy expenses from the PCSO.
The PCSO legal department under lawyer Lauro Patiag said suspect Villasin had three cases of solicitation allegedly using spurious clinical abstracts from the Perpetual Medical Center.
The amount involved is still being determined.
"The suspects could be part of a bigger syndicate, posing as members of indigent families then secure fake hospital abstracts of payment and use them to solicit financial and medical assistance from the charity institution," Dolina stated in his report to Verzosa.
His deputy, Senior Superintendent Leo Marzan, said one of the clinical abstracts used in soliciting funds from the PCSO originated from the medical oncology section of the East Avenue Medical Center.
"The PCSO general manager was quite alarmed that a group soliciting medical and financial assistance from her office has grown at such a scale and that these persons are stealing funds intended to the people who are most desperately in need of help," Dolina said.
Police said they are still trying to determine the amount solicited by suspect Rovero, who had eight clinical abstracts initially approved by the PCSO.
The suspects have all been taken to the Galas police station for booking. They were charged with falsification of private and public documents and estafa.