My eyes normally gloss over letters to the editor, but I have been sensitized to issues involving the GSIS for three compelling reasons: the first is due to my experience at the GSIS head office which I wrote about some time back, when I accompanied my 80+ year old aunt to renew her e-Card and came across bedlam involving close to 100 white-haired pensioners. But for the intervention of GSIS VP Ella Balencerina, a roomful of pensioners could have erupted in the latest People Power revolt right there and then. Second, there was this column written on August 18 by my Economics professor, Solita Monsod which caught my eye because Prof. Monsod had raised a number of questions about the GSIS and its operations; and, third, there is my father’s own experience with the GSIS, an experience that, actually, parallels the issue being complained about in the letter to the editor that caught my eye.

The letter writer, Elmer Casillan, was actually complaining about four months of pensions that the GSIS has failed to pay his father. The pensioner, whose name is Silvino Casillan, is a resident of Naga City; more importantly, he is in hospital suffering from pneumonia and is in the ICU of a private hospital there. You can therefore imagine the urgency of the matter.

Elmer describes the Naga City GSIS personnel as apparently "powerless to grant our request to expedite the release of the long delayed monthly pensions," adding that "they could only pass the buck to their national office. They cannot even give us hope that the pension will come soon."

Although not in straits as dire as Mr. Casillan, my father is close to leading a popular uprising of other GSIS pensioners because he, too, has not received any pensions since June of this year. The last time he withdrew money from his e-Card (more about that later!) was in May, prior to a trip abroad. While abroad, he was confident that his pensions were being deposited in his account monthly. However, since his return late last month he has discovered that nothing has been deposited into his account; and I am witness to the account balance myself because last Sunday I took my dad’s e-Card and checked his balance: it was a princely sum of P407.10 which might have even been reduced further because I used a non-Union Bank ATM to do the balance check!

Actually, since my father arrived, he has been wondering whether the GSIS only had problems with their Pagsanjan branch – maybe someone had run away with the money or maybe invested it in the Francswiss scam? Now, however, the case of Mr. Casillan makes even me wonder how widespread this problem is.

Where is the money? And where are the interest earnings that the pensioners have also lost?

Like Prof. Monsod, I also raise a number of questions about this GSIS, which has been boasting about its track record, its savings, and its world-class service. Think of the following three points:

One, since the GSIS now banks with a private bank, it is that private bank that benefits from the use of the multimillions – or maybe billions – in GSIS funds. Why? Why couldn’t the GSIS funds – government money, mind you – remain with a government bank, so that it is a government bank that benefits, and not some private business?

Two: When the GSIS boasts of savings, is it because, as in the case of Mr. Casillan, my father, and only God and Winston Garcia know how many others (heck, maybe not even God, just Winston Garcia!) is it because pensioners are not getting their pensions on schedule, which means the GSIS can actually fool around with the money in the money market?

Three: Because the unpaid pensions are for four months – starting on or around May or June – is it unfair to wonder whether there is a connection between the recently concluded elections and the unpaid pensions?

Here’s more: If the Social Security System (of which I am a member, thank God!) can increase pensions by 10 percent, isn’t it a shame that the GSIS has decreased its increases to far less than that?

And, echoing what Prof. Monsod asks, what makes Winston Garcia and Cebu so "malakas"? Is it because that’s where GMA got her winning margin, Garci aside?

Here’s what Elmer had to say to end his letter:

"Pension remittance is supposed to be a routine GSIS function and service. It is a monumental shame for a social security service of the government to habitually fail in doing this job over long periods. And to think that the GSIS employees are among the most highly paid government employees."

Really in the GSIS, ineptitude is the name of the game. Efficiency, whenever we see a flash of it, comes as a surprise.

The GSIS officials should not give us complicated explanations for a very simple, routine service. They should just deliver it. And we will be grateful."

Paging the GSIS! How many more pensioners have you been denying their rightful pensions?