Nat’l ID, data sharing can prevent scams like Philhealth ‘ghost’ treatments —Drilon

Minority Leader Franklin Drilon urged Friday the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to enhance its data sharing capability with the imminent implementation of the national identification system.

Drilon expressed hope the PSA, repository and custodian of all data and main implementer of the Philippines Identification System Act, would be more open to sharing the data relevant to service delivery.

This was after Philhealth said PSA refused to confirm whether the patients of a dialysis center claiming benefits with the state health insurer have already died due to the data privacy law.

PSA said Philhealth should have requested a data sharing agreement with them.

Drilon, principal author of the Philippine ID Act, said simple sharing of data could help prevent fraudulent transactions such as the ‘ghost dialysis’ treatment controversy that plagued the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (Philhealth) that caused the government billions of pesos.

“The establishment of a single national ID system and an effective data sharing between and among government agencies could help prevent fraudulent transactions from arising in the future,” he said.

He said the fact of death of a person is not a privacy issue and not a sensitive personal information that PSA should withhold, particularly if it involves the disbursement of public funds.

“What danger would it pose to the deceased person, or his or her family, if Philhealth knows that he or she is already dead?” Drilon asked.

“None. This is just a factual question answerable by just yes or no, but is very important for Philhealth and other agencies disbursing public funds for the benefits of claimants to know in order to verify the legitimacy of a claim and prevent fake, illegal and fraudulent transactions,” he added.

He said the law mandates establishment of a single national identification system for all Filipinos, here and abroad, to enhance the delivery of basic services to the public and eliminate corruption, among others.

He said once the national ID system is in place, agencies tasked to disburse public funds for the benefit of claimants, including Philhealth, Social Security System, the Government Service and Insurance System, and the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office, among others, can readily verify information about the claimant before they disburse pubic funds.

The senator said this is because the implementation of the national ID system will provide for a mechanism or a system to verify the existence of a person, most importantly whether the claimant is alive or not, or whether the transaction is fraudulent or not.

He further said the law’s implementing rules and regulations also clearly included that the death of the registered person would cause the deactivation of the person’s permanent identification number.

He said that could potentially eliminate fraudulent transactions such as what happened in the ghost dialysis treatment controversy.

Drilon said the national ID law will empower the agencies against fraudulent claims, while helping them provide efficient delivery of service to the public. —NB, GMA News