Around 2,000 public school teachers from various Department of Education (DepEd) divisions and government employees in Bacolod and Negros Occidental staged a protest action last week to press their demands to resolve major issues and problems facing GSIS members, retirees and pensioners.

BY KARL G. OMBION
Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 17, June 3-9, 2007

BACOLOD CITY – Everything was orderly and peaceful, but ended not so well. This was how public school teachers and employees described their protest last May 31 at the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) office here.

Around 2,000 public school teachers from various Department of Education (DepEd) divisions and government employees in Bacolod and Negros Occidental staged a protest action to press their demands to resolve major issues and problems facing GSIS members, retirees and pensioners, including alleged irregularities in the agency’s operations.

The protesters belonging to Alliance of Concerned Teachers of Negros (ACT-Neg), Alliance of Classroom Teachers – Bacolod (ACT-BA), Bacolod City Public School Teachers Association (BCPSTA), pensioners and retirees group PROFUND, and the Confederation for the Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (Courage), began to mass up around 9:00 a.m. last May 31 in front of the GSIS building.

Among the key issues raised by the teachers were the GSIS Premium-based Policy and Auto CLIP/Cross Default Policy, which teachers and employees said have resulted in a deferment of their loans and benefits since May 5, 2003. It also reportedly subjected them to high loan interest rates; gave them unequal and non-commensurate retirement benefits; and delayed or stopped their contribution to employees compensation. They also complained about the non-remittance of their premiums; increasing contributions; limiting survivorship claims; “oppressive” life insurance policy with no benefits for disability, accidental death, and burial; stoppage of Edu-Child and Genesis programs; and oppressive housing loan policy.

ACT-BA President Richard Gelangre accused GSIS of “continued neglect” of the rights
and welfare of the millions of state employees and pensioners. “(The hypocritical GSIS) slogan ‘Kahit Saan, Kahit Kailan, Maaasahan’ (Reliable Anywhere, Anytime) is an insult to us; it has rendered us more miserable than ever before, while GSIS bureaucrats headed by the callous, arrogant and staunchly anti-people president Winston Garcia have become rich, delivering members-pensioner’s billions to their illegitimate bosses in Malacañang,” he said.

Gelangre said that over the years, and especially under the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Garcia, the GSIS, a government agency supposed to take care of the members’ money, has not really been true to its mandate.

ACT-Neg president Gilda Quiatchon charged that the GSIS is “quick as lightning” in making automatic deduction of all their dues from their regular salaries, but when their turn comes to collect their benefits, they are made to suffer by going through bureaucratic processes. “A number of us have long been out of public service but have not been fully paid their benefits and regular pensions, while others still are paying their unexplained dues,” she added.

BCPSTA President Gladys Sales, on the other hand, slammed the GSIS for defeating its purpose of protecting the state employees. “It is obvious now that the GSIS policies no longer protect us; we are losing most of our benefits and our retirees retire without retirement pay because of the Auto CLIP policy and other bureaucratic abuses,” she said.

She particularly scored GSIS for the loss of their survivor benefits, life insurance benefits and housing benefits; and added that GSIS instead has made its members and pensioners a huge milking cow for the vested interests of the few. “Garcia’s main concern now is not the protection of our interests and welfare but that of GSIS and their bosses.”

Linda Sarasola, a 65-year-old school teacher who retired from government service in June 2004, testified that he had served the government for 41 years but when she retired she was only credited for 36 years, blaming the GSIS new Premium-based Policy and the Auto CLIP policy.

A retiree who spoke in a press conference two days before the rally said that she has been following up her and her husband’s benefits since 2005 but until now their claims “remain in limbo.” She accused GSIS of “deliberate delays and deception.”

In a joint position paper, the protesters charged that pensioners and disabled members are required to appear at GSIS to prove their existence; excessively longer period of processing and releasing retirement and disability claims; discrepancies in the premium contributions despite computerization program; imposition of several unfair surcharges; and lack of updating on statement of accounts of members.

One of the main issues of grave consequence to the government employees is the retirement benefits that they can no longer enjoy if they have unpaid loans. It is only at retirement that employees usually realize that their unpaid loans with GSIS had ballooned to staggering amounts due to the high interest rates and surcharges. The effect is that the member’s retirement benefits are withheld to pay off said balances and if insufficient, can even result in the full deduction of the account from the monthly retirement pension that the employee is supposed to receive.

The worst-case scenario, the teachers said, is when the employee’s monthly pension is not sufficient and their house and lot under the Pabahay (Housing) Loan Program were made collateral to the loan. Such insufficiency can result in the foreclosure of the house and lot. The culprit for this is the implementation of GSIS Auto CLIP policy, they say.

Another issue that the teachers complained about is the charging of interests and surcharges to their individual accounts for the delayed remittances of the Department of Budget and Management on their premiums. Since the premiums on their policies are automatically deducted from the payroll, the teachers are not responsible for the delay. They say there are cases when the remittances are issued on time but are still late in reaching the pensioners Even if the remittances are given on time, but the delay is due to the failure of the GSIS personnel to record or encode the payments, the teachers should not be made liable and thus charged the exorbitant interests and other charges.

Provincial government also a victim

It is not only the teachers who are victimized by “erroneous” GSIS posting of premium remittances. According to Gov. Alfredo G. Marañon, the provincial government spent close to P500,000 ($10,850.69, based on an exchange rate of P46.08 per US dollar) many years back to pay for overtime work done by its accounting employees just to have their records and figures reconciled with that of the Bacolod Branch of the GSIS.

A few years ago, the provincial government was billed an astronomical sum by the GSIS for allegedly not remitting GSIS premiums of provincial government employees. When pressed for proof, GSIS management watered down the case to delinquent remittances. Marañon did not agree. Their records finally got straightened out.

Teachers and employees drew sympathy from Marañon even if he did not allow or encourage provincial government employees to participate in the mass action.

GSIS version

In a dialogue with the leaders of various teachers and employees organizations, GSIS Negros Occidental Branch Manager Ruth Hilado, assisted by her senior staff officers, clarified a number of complaints and issues raised against GSIS.

One of the major issues Hilado clarified is the Premium-based Policy and AutoClip Policy which she said does not limit member’s accessibility to loans or deprive them of whatever claims they have from GSIS. “The policies simply consolidate all the balances from the member’s total loans for easier assessment and computation of surcharges, and then they could loan again provided they still have proceeds to get,” she said. “In fact, we now offer a variety of loan schemes, up to 10-month salary loan, and payable in six years at 12 percent per annum; this was never the case before.”

She also said that members should not confuse benefits from indebtedness. “GSIS is concerned with member’s benefits not their indebtedness; if they become indebted after their public service, then let’s discuss the causes and how to correct them.”

Hilado clarified that there is no clip or changes in all other claims and benefits of the members like in survivorship, retirement, life insurance, life endowment and housing. “They are still determined by the principle of what you pay is what you get; there are only adjustments in some schemes to make it more beneficial to the members and the agency; in fact, you already enjoy your benefits before you are made to account for them,” she said.

If there are delays and discrepancies in members’ remittances, surcharges and claims, it could be due to lapses in the system which we are still trying to perfect, but the system of GSIS is “very much alright,” she added.

On the charges that E-Card and E-Card plus are just rackets of the Garcia administration, Hilado explained that “E-Card system is an effort towards paperless transaction, eliminate unnecessary expenses, and rechannel whatever savings we could and rechannel them to member’s benefits,” she said.

“In fact we could get more benefits from the use of e-card, among them, members in far away places need not come to Bacolod to get money but go to their nearest kiosk or ATM center; it could also be used for getting discounts in some commercial transactions,” Hilado added.

Hilado also brushed off allegations that there is “politics” in GSIS management and operations, saying, “I don’t know much about that, but I must say, don’t believe 100 percent of what you hear.”

In a follow-up interview, Hilado acknowledged the teachers and employees’ demands as valid. “Their demands and requests for resolution of their issues are valid, and even long overdue; but they should also understand that while we have responded to their issues, we still can’t finish them all yet because the system was decentralized only to us in 2006 and we are still enhancing it, especially the computerization system.”

She also begged for teachers’ patience, saying, “they should just be patient because we are doing our best, we are responding to their demands especially local ones like e-card enrollment, delayed claims, consol loans, among others; but they can’t force us to implement a different system for Negros only because it is beyond our power and we must supposed to have one system only for the entire GSIS.”

Hilado added that they have only around 40 regular employees as against their 42,000 members, of which around 36,000 are active, in Negros Occidental. “That is why we ask the members to be patient with us, and have regular dialogue with us, because we are trying to manage well our time, program of work, cleansing our entire records, and we have already pointed this to the national office through our senior vice president for field operations so they could provide us with additional assistance in terms of resources, personnel and facilities.”

Unsatisfied

For his part, Gualberto Dajao, secretary-general of ACT-BA, said, “Their explanations sound palatable but a reality check tells us otherwise; we are absorbing miserably all their system enhancements and improvements; how long shall we wait before their system becomes truly beneficial for us?”

ACT-BA president Richard Gelangre added,, “We are impressed by Ms. Hilado’s explanations but I still could not figure out how and how long before they would be able to resolve all these discrepancies and inconsistencies.”

Quiatchon said that they will review the outcome of their protest and dialogue, and then make the next move.

Courage Region VI president Dan Alcoriza identified Garcia as the “mastermind of the chaos” in the GSIS and the woes of the teachers and state employees. “Everything was not as bad before Garcia; but during his time it has only turned for the worse; he and his gang under Malacañang’s direction are dictating and manipulating everything in GSIS to their favor without even a basic regard for our basic rights under the GSIS Law. The GSIS under Garcia has done except to loot our money for themselves and for other businesses and investments which in the first place are not transparent to us.”

Alcoriza also scored Arroyo for using Garcia as “a tool to steal the hard-earned money” of state employees. “Let us not forget that Garcia and most if not all of Board of Trustees are political appointees of GMA; for that the only way to oust the reign of Garcia is to work for the ouster first of GMA,” he said.

He added that until these policies are rescinded, the teachers and the government employees in general will always have a bleak future ahead of them.

The teachers and employees action here, said Gelangre, was part of a nationwide coordinated protest of various national and local teachers and employees associations and unions, in time with the 70th anniversary of GSIS.(Bulatlat.com)