IT application is only as good as its provider

When the big scam regarding the use of fake CTPL (compulsory third party liability) insurance policies, commonly known as COC (certificate of cover) for the registration of motor vehicles finally came out into the open, the first impulse of those who primarily wished to eradicate it, namely the LTO, Land Transportation Commission and the Insurance Commission, was to turn to IT or Information Technology.

For many years the unscrupulous were having a grand party issuing fake COCs or recycling previously issued ones several times over to the detriment of both the public and the government not to mention the legitimate insurance companies.

The unknowing public only gets to know about it when accidents occur and insurance claims are not paid because the policies are either fake or invalid. Invalid because the same policy with the same number has been issued to a hundred more persons or the insurance transaction was never really officially registered with the main office and the payments similarly not remitted.

The government in turn, through the years has lost billions of pesos in unpaid revenues due to the millions of unregistered transactions, the same as in the case of the legitimate insurance companies, which never got remittances from this illegal process.

Thus, the LTO and the Insurance Commission agreed to establish a system of registration and verification of CTPL insurance policies on real time, online basis, integrated into the existing workflow of LTO and its offices nationwide under its LTO-IT System. For this purpose a group named Stradcom developed such a system and presently operates it.

However the system, no matter how well designed it is, still needs the data to be processed to achieve its ultimate goal of operation. To compliment the entire operations, the Insurance and Surety Association of the Philippines (ISAP), the organization of licensed non-life insurance companies proposed to develop the authentication system and provide its own distinct IT providers to handle separately the authentication and verification systems.

What a perfect set up – the government and the private sector working hand in hand in achieving a common goal of protecting the public and the industry while helping out the government get its just due.

But what’s this? The Cinderella story seems to be turning out to be a Borris Karloff tale of the macabre.

Levity aside, reports have reached us regarding the dismay of many vehicle owners to what they perceive as the government’s inadequacy in providing vital services, in this case relevant to vehicle ownership and their registration as required by law. As the law dictates that vehicle owners must have"third party liability insurance", they also expect that the government expedite the process of seeing that this provision of the law is followed. This is not so.

It has been observed that the COC verification system of current IT provider has been proven inefficient. The IT provider’s computers in many LTO district and regional offices are either not installed yet or are not being used. And read this – the IT provider’s system of verification is done by text messaging! This runs contrary to the established rules that require verification to be "online, real-time and with no human intervention" and therefore does not insure the integrity of the authentication/validation process and delays the motor vehicle registration process since the LTO evaluator could not easily determine for sure of the COCs authenticity before he begins to process the motor vehicle registration. And for this the government is directly blamed by those affected for the fracas – not the system or whichever faulty parts of it.

It is said that IT systems experts are of the opinion that with two separate systems handling the registration/authentication and the verification of COCs that are not locked into the LTO-IT system being operated by Stradcom, nobody can be sure that fake COCs are indeed eliminated from the system.

I have always been "fast on the draw" when I know it is the government or its integral system that’s to be blamed for any miscue, but I know this one’s not to be charged to the GMA crew.

As a matter of fact, the government through the LTO immediately reacted to the complaints received from the public and the various LTO district offices in the NCR and other regions as early as August 2002 on how the COC authentication and verification was being mishandled by asking the present IT systems provider of the LTO and the Insurance Commission to develop an interlocking system to interconnect all these functions for better facility.

Word has it though that this government move, initiated by the LTO head has attracted a lot of "missiles of mud" toward the LTO official especially when he expressed that the violations committed by the IT providers handling the registration, authentication and verification of the COCs as evidenced by documented complaints were grounds for the pre-termination of the MOA covering these services. More so when it was learned that Stradcom, the present IT provider that has an unblemished track record of efficiently meeting the systems requirements of the LTO and the Insurance Commission, is being tagged to get this whole act together in providing fast, accurate and transparent service to the huge public of motor vehicle owners.

We have always encouraged those engaged in the IT business to help out the government speed up their providing much needed public services in whatever form through the use of advanced Information Technology. But the private sector can only help out by providing a much higher plane of performance than to the government’s present mostly unacceptable level.

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.

For comments: (e-mail) [email protected]