THE Government Service Insurance System,
which has been criticized for its plan to take over the
Compulsory Third Party Liability (CTPL) system for all motor
vehicles, yesterday said its critics' dire warnings and threats
of transport strikes are "an act of desperation to protect
insurance racketeers and fixers."
GSIS president Winston Garcia said 60 of the
83 registered insurance companies in the Philippines have
already expressed support and intention to participate in the
CTPL system conceptualized by the GSIS.
"And many more insurers and re-insurers are
joining the bandwagon," he said, debunking a claim that 60,000
jobs in the insurance sector would be lost once the new CTPL
system is implemented.
Garcia said that that the GSIS CTPL system,
which has been approved by the Department of Transportation and
Communications, will put an end to the problem of fake CTPL
policies being sold to the public.
"So, what 60,000 jobs to be lost are they
talking about?" asked Garcia, referring to the claim of the
Philippine Insurers and Reinsurers Association (PIRA) that "more
than 60,000 vehicle insurance agents who earn commissions of
P500 million annually" will lose their jobs.
"Only the racketeers who had been selling to
the public fake CTPL policies for years will go out of
business," Garcia said.
The coalition of transport organizations
under the 1-United Transport Koalisyon (1-UTAK), which is
opposing the GSIS takeover, canceled its plan for a transport
strike after Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro
Mendoza committed during a three-hour marathon hearing Thursday
to hold off the signing of a memorandum of agreement with the
Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board and the
GSIS which mandates operators of public utility vehicles to get
their CTPL insurance policy from GSIS.
The MOA would have sidelined the current
two-group system where insurance companies Passenger Accident
Managers Insurance (PAMI) and Universal Transport Accident
Solutions Inc. (UNITRANS) take care of the comprehensive third
party liability (CTPL) insurance needs of PUV owners under their
"All Risk No Fault Coverage."
The "All Risk No Fault Coverage" entitles
every beneficiary to a P400,000 insurance claim in only five
days, a 24/7 ready ambulance and a bail bond of P20,000 for
drivers facing jail after an accident.
"Natutuwa kami, hindi binuwag ang dalawang
insurance consortium (Unitrans and PAMI), nagpapasalamat kami sa
mga opsiyal ng DOTC dahil nakinig sila sa kagustuhan ng mga nasa
sektor ng transportasyon," 1-Utak spokesman Orlando Marquez
said.
Despite the shelving of the MOA, PIRA
chairman Honorio Ramano said they will go to the Supreme Court
to appeal the rejection of their petition to keep GSIS out of
the CTPL business that is estimated to be worth P3.5 billion a
year.
Ramano said that Section 387 of the Insurance
Code bars the GSIS from acting as an agent and broker for the
agency. He said the GSIS' involvement in the CTPL business is
"intervention in a purely private affair by a government
entity."
GSIS chief legal counsel and spokesperson
Estrella Elamparo said the GSIS fully believes in the merit of
its CTPL program as it will provide the public CTPLs that are
cheaper by an average of P300 and which are guaranteed to be
genuine.
Elamparo said the majority of the insurance
companies joining the CTPL business means that there would be no
monopoly by the GSIS on issuing CTPLs.
To bolster assertions that motor vehicle
registrants and the government are being duped by providers of
fake CTPL policies, the Insurance Commission said that in 2003,
4.3 million vehicles were registered with the LTO but that only
P1.3 billion of the P2.5 billion premium payments made were
reported. This showed that P1.2 billion worth of CTPLs sold then
were fakes.
The IC said taxes due the government for the
premiums should have been P579 million but only P310 million
made it to the national coffers. It added that the problem
persists to the present, thus its full support for the GSIS CTPL
system.
Under the GSIS CTPL system, the CTPL cover is already made
part of the vehicle registration process of the LTO, to which
the GSIS will be interconnected electronically for CTPL
enrollment and claims purposes. Because vehicle owners only have
to deal with the LTO, and the GSIS will in turn farm out the
provision of CTPLs to accredited insurers, the public gets the
assurance of getting only genuine policies which they can rely
on in case of accidents. - JP Lopez and Randy Nobleza
