FUND OWNERS MARK GSIS 73RD ANNIV WITH RALLY

Submitted by courage_phil on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 06:02.

“There is no reason for the fund owners to
celebrate the GSIS anniversary, an agency that has given us more headaches than
efficient services,” said COURAGE Secretary-General Santiago Dasmariñas, Jr. on
the forthcoming 73^rd anniversary of the Government Service Insurance
System (GSIS) on May 31.

 

In a protest action held today in front of the
State Pension Fund’s Main Office in Pasay, government employees brought forth
their diverse issues and pressed the GSIS to address them immediately. The
protesters claimed that the agency’s anniversary was never an occasion for more
than 1.5 million GSIS members to celebrate whatever achievements that the GSIS
is expected to flaunt but serves to remind them of their continuing task to
collectively act in protecting their
funds and fighting for better benefits and services.

 

COURAGE also hit the GSIS officials for recently passing on the blame to
the IBM Corp. for all the inconveniencies encountered by fund owners. “The
‘system glitch’ excuse is apparently very convenient for GSIS, however, no one
buys that reason. Everyone knows that since Winston Garcia assumed his post as
General Manager of GSIS in 2003, various problems plagued not only the
government employees in active service but also pensioners. The Claims and
Loans Interdependency Policy (CLIP), Premium-based Policy and the other
policies that Garcia introduced were the primary causes of the inaccessibility
of much needed loans and retirement benefits and the delayed postings of premiums and payments. The widespread corruption
perpetuated by the top GSIS officials also contributes to the deterioration of
the Insurance’s services,” noted Dasmariñas.

 

The leader also assailed GSIS repressive practice of filing libel cases
against its critics. “Instead of responsibly facing the complaints of its
members, GSIS would rather silence all those who protect and promote the
interests of the fund owners. COURAGE President Ferdinand Gaite and
highly-respected media practitioner Che-Che Lazaro were just two of the many
victims of GSIS harassment. It is deplorable that Winston Garcia and the rest
of the GSIS top honchos act as if they are untouchables when they are
supposedly accountable to the public,” added Dasmariñas.

 

COURAGE also announced its plan to file a legal suit against GSIS in the
Supreme Court. The case would question the Premium-based Policy created by the
GSIS Board of Trustees whom the militant organization declared does not have
the right to essentially change the definition of length of service into
“creditable years of service” or years based on premiums paid. “This is a clear
violation of the law. It is only Congress that can amend the GSIS law and not
just the pension fund’s Board of Trustees,” clarified Dasmariñas. #