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Like fish in water

NO HOLDS BARRED

Armida Siguion-Reyna

04/29/2008

Two weeks ago, Filipino doctors were exposed toying with a sedated patient’s rights to confidential treatment. Friday last week Filipino doctors hit the news anew, swindling the United States military health insurance program of $100 million in fake claims. The keyword here is Filipino.

We can’t excuse ourselves by saying, “The ones laughing and jeering on YouTube as a perfume canister was pulled out of an unconscious gay’s bottom were Cebuanos.”

Or, “Only a few of our doctors conspired to bloat health claims filed by US war veterans.”

Whether from Cebu, or merely just a handful, what’s clear as day is that Filipinos were caught in grievous misconduct like, well, fish in water. Ang sakit ng kalingkingan ay sakit ng buong katawan. An accusation against one stains us all.

Late last year there was nationwide indignation over actor Teri Hatcher’s fictional putdown of “some medical school in the Philippines” in Desperate Housewives. But with these two recent acts of katarantaduhan from the same group of professionals somewhat transforming the putdown from reel to real, it suddenly appears Hatcher’s character could be right: there is reason to doubt the integrity of graduates from Philippine medical schools.

Is anyone out there doing damage control?

From government, it’s again Health Secretary Francisco Duque III and no one else. But after vowing to punish those guilty of raping the rights of the operating room victim codenamed “Danilo,” he is amenable to the investigation to unmask parties to the padding of health claims filed by US war vets.

A doctor has already been picked up for questioning, but Duque is not stopping at that. Similar to his stand in the case of the abusive surgery team at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center, he is mulling the possible revocation of individual medical licenses with the Professional Regulation Commission and the cancellation of the healthcare providers’ PhilHealth accreditation.

Tricare, a Pentagon program with over 9 million members comprised of active and retired American enlisted men and their dependents worldwide, disbursed $210 million to overseas claimants in 2006. Around $100 million of the total figure was paid out to Philippine providers, with the biggest bulk in 2003, when $40 million out of $61.8 million worth of claims were said to be falsified.

Media reports have zeroed in on Health Visions Corp. (HVC), owner of a cluster of hospitals and clinics that quietly stopped operating in July 2006 to sell assets here and abroad to repay the US government. Sa madaling sabi, as early as middle of two years ago, HVC knew the stink had hit the fan, but kept it so tightly guarded, walang nakaamoy. Until now.

But it’s not as if the scam is over. The Philippine Daily Inquirer says it is still going on, through other accredited doctors and clinics in Olongapo City, near what used to be the Subic Naval Base, where a huge bulk of expatriate US servicemen continue to live with their families.

A blacklisted clinic registered under a new name, and went back to (monkey) business na parang walang nangyari. After signing blank claim forms, a retiree’s wife discovered several other women collecting claims using her details, presumably her husband’s date of birth, his Social Security Services number, etc. As the Inquirer wryly commented, it was like she had signed a blank check.

A Filipino doctor convinced a Pinoy US Navy retiree to sign false claims in excess of $100,000, but paid him only $4,760. The Pinoy was jailed for a year and a half in the US, plus three more years on probation, with one third of his $800 monthly pension continuously deducted by the American government as payment, until he pays the full amount of $132, 390. The Filipino doctor is still at large.

Filipino doctors through their spurious clinics overprice and bill Tricare. Patients are supposed to pay for 25 percent of the bill, but willingly escape shelling out their share, without realizing that although they do not pay, someone else will. That someone is Tricare, and it is now putting its foot down on the entire shenanigan, and moving to have the guilty arrested and extradited to the US.

Tricare may win, then again it may not. The scam may be obliterated, or a new one’s just going to rise in its stead. It hurts to say this, but we are quite close to this point: the Philippines is the best place to be in, if you’re a swindler. All you need to do is breathe the same air that the best and the rest of the mandurugas do, and you learn from them, you are nurtured by them.

The Filipino shyster has gotten to be so adept at panggagantso, that nothing stymies him, nothing scares him. Not the fear of embarrassment, not the shame of arrest. Mahuli man siya, siya pa ang galit. The most he’ll do is back off a bit, in the Mike Arroyo sense of the phrase, and when soon as it’s disimulado, quickly go back to gypping the world like, well, fish in water. Look for recent media pictures of Army comptroller Gen. Carlos Garcia and see how widely he smiles, like he knows he’ll be out soon. Even Nani Perez gives the impression he knows the warrant of arrest against him is nothing but a palabas.

It’s been like this in this most kawawa part of the world, since Gloria Arroyo insisted she was president and very few had balls enough to genuinely contradict her. Kung ano ang puno, iyon ang bunga, and this is how the world measures us.

Look beyond Filipino doctors who make fools of their patients, or tweak insurance receipts. Read about the increasing number of overseas foreign workers put in prison in their various workplaces for a variety of misdemeanors and wonder why they are hard put to defend themselves, why they are so easily indicted.

Imagine the many classrooms in this country, where cheating takes place like it were the most natural thing to do. It’s bad enough that the world looks at us as a nation of cheats and swindlers, the greatest pain is that we have truly become such like, well, fish in water.

And it will be worse tomorrow.

(For comments, write to armida114@yahoo.com)