PhilHealth grilled over senior citizen list including 3-year old, members younger than 60

The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) was grilled on Tuesday over the possibly "over-bloated" list of senior citizen beneficiaries, which includes members as young as three years old.

At the resumption of the Senate hearing on alleged PhilHealth irregularities, Senator Francis Tolentino questioned the state insurer's list of senior citizens, which included several members who were found to be below 60 years of age.

"Iniiba na ninyo 'yung batas. May 18 years old, may 56 years old, papano natin maayos 'to na binago ninyo pati ang classification ng senior citizen?" Tolentino  asked officials of the state insurer.

In a presentation shown by Tolentino, the list of senior citizen members of the PhilHealth included a certain Mora Dangdang Caramat said to be 18 years of age, and Amita Pason Taladbo said to be three years old.

"This list of membership which PhilHealth is now showing to us as senior citizens, those 18 years old, 34 years old, 35 years old are now entitled to senior citizen benefits?" he questioned officials.

For his part, PhilHealth president and chief executive officer Ricardo Morales said efforts are underway to clean up the list, but it is proving to be a tedious process.

"'Yung database ho ng organization is a very imporant portion of its operations. Ang PhilHealth po ang may pinakamalaking database kasi 109 million members at constant ho na nililinis 'yan, constant na nililinis," he said during the hearing.

"Mahirap ho mag-maintain ng database kasi palipat-lipat ho ng address, mayroong nagiging 21 years old, nagiging senior, may nag-asawa, may namatay, so constant po talaga ang effort sa paglinis ng database," he added.

Morales added that the agency plans to hire a corporate data officer, in cooperation with the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

"It is a never ending challenge," he told the senators.

"Kailangan ho malinis na 'yung databse kasi sabi nga ho nila, kung ma-computerize 'yung mali ay malaki hong pagkakamli 'yan, kaya dapat linisin ho talaga 'yan at kaya ngayon ho nililinis namin yan. Meron kaming effort to clean up the database but still continuing," he added. — RSJ, GMA News