Lawmaker: Insurers should comply with AIDS law

MANILA, Philippines - As the Philippines prepares to mark World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, an administration lawmaker is urging regulators to check whether insurance firms doing business in the country have been complying with a law that bars them from excluding HIV-positive Filipinos from health, accident and life coverage services.

“The law expressly forbids the exclusion of HIV-positive Filipinos from enjoying insurance services,” LPGMA party-list Rep. Arnel Ty said.

Ty warned that under the law, those found discriminating against HIV-positive persons face up to four years in prison, a fine of up to P10,000, plus license revocation.

To ensure that HIV-positive Filipinos are adequately protected, he urged the Department of Health and the Insurance Commission to find out whether insurers have been acting in accordance with Republic Act 8504 or the AIDS Prevention and Control Law.

Section 39 of the law states: “Exclusion from Credit and Insurance Services – All credit and loan services, including health, accident and life insurance shall not be denied to a person on the basis of his/her actual, perceived, or suspected HIV status: Provided, That the person with HIV has not concealed or misrepresented the fact to the insurance company upon application.”

Cases of HIV, or the human immunodeficiency virus, infection hit a record high of eight Filipinos every day in September, when a total of 253 new cases were diagnosed nationwide.

An HIV-positive person can later develop Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS.

A total of 1,669 new HIV cases were discovered in the country from January to September this year, up 40 percent compared to the 1,201 spotted over the same period in 2010.

Ty has been pushing for highly aggressive measures to suppress HIV and improve the conditions of the growing number of Filipinos living with the virus.

He and four colleagues in the House earlier filed a bill seeking to add more teeth to the AIDS Prevention and Control Law, including a fresh allocation of P400 million to fight the infectious disease.

According to them, the 13-year-old law has become out of date, amid the sudden surge of the disease that is predominantly spread through high-risk sexual contact.

The National HIV and AIDS Registry, which tracks the disease, now lists an aggregate of 7,684 cases, including 339 deaths, since 1984. Nine out of every 10 cases in the registry were infected on account of unprotected sexual contact.

Up to 46,000 Filipinos could be diagnosed with HIV by 2015, unless the spread of the disease is effectively checked, the Philippine National AIDS Council has warned.