Senator Francis Tolentino flagged on Tuesday questionable items in the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation's (PhilHealth) database of members, including thousands of centenarians and a three-year-old member who was reportedly identified as a senior citizen.

During the second hearing of the Senate Committee of the Whole on the alleged irregularities in the PhilHealth, the senator said he found out that registered beneficiaries of the state insurer include some who were born between 1899 and 1900.

"Under pa ho tayo ng American rule noon, ang ating military governor-general, si General Arthur MacArthur pa at buhay pa po noon si Apolinario Mabini, buhay pa si General  Aguinaldo (We were still under the American rule then, our military governor-general was General Arthur MacArthur and Apolinario Mabini was till alive and General Aguinaldo was still alive)," Tolentino said in raising his point.

PhilHealth president and chief executive officer Ricardo Morales during the August 4 hearing of the Senate bared that some 5,000 members of the state health insurer aged 130 years old remain in their database due to lack of documents proving that they are deceased.

On Tuesday, Morales said such members in their records have been tagged "as an anomaly". He said he has already ordered the PhilHealth regional offices to verify with proper authorities the identity and status of the centenarian members in their database.

Tolentino, however, said the number of "super-centenarian" PhilHealth members expand to thousands, with at least 42,000 in one region alone.

He said this may affect the National Identification System if PhilHealth database would be used as a basis.

Aside from the 100-year-old PhilHealth beneficiaries, Tolentino also noted that members aged below 60 years old have been identified as "active senior citizen" members.

Citing PhilHealth database as of September 27, 2018, the senior citizen members include a 56-year-old, a 34-year-old, an 18-year-old, and even a three-year-old.

"So it is possible that we have an overbloated list of members," Tolentino said.

Morales, in response, said the agency is "constantly" cleaning up its database of 109 million PhilHealth members. He said they will coordinate with the Philippine Statistics Authority and the Department of Social Welfare and Development on  the matter.

"Yung database po ng (The database of the) corporation is a very important portion of its operations...Mahirap ho mag-maintain ng database..so constamt po talaga ang effort sa paglinis ng database (It's hard to maintain a database so it cleaning it up is really a constant effort). It is a major effort along with the computerization program na dapat tatahakin ng PhilHealth (that the PhilHealth was supposed to undertake)," he said.

The Senate was discussing, among other issues, the allegedly overpriced ICT equipment that officials of the state insurer have proposed. Morales had maintained the need for such an IT system to monitor their members and prevent fraud.