Teachers ask CA to
nullify GSIS policies

PUBLIC School teachers yesterday petitioned the Court of Appeals to nullify what they called the "unsound" policies of the state-run Government Service Insurance System in unjustly and illegally appropriating from them some P21 billion in benefits during a 10-year period from July 1997 to December 2007.

The teachers belonging to the Manila Public School Teachers Association (MPSTA), Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC), Teachers Inc. and Federation of Teachers Cooperative (FTC), in a joint petition for prohibition and mandamus, asked the CA to invalidate GSIS president Winston Garcia’s use of premium-based policy as the basis for granting benefits.

Under the premium-based policy, GSIS benefits are based on the actual premium payments received by the GSIS. The teachers’ groups said this policy is to blame for their continued problems with their GSIS pensions, loans, maturity, retirement and other benefits and are demanding that their length of service be used as basis instead.

Petitioners said the premium-based policy has resulted in them incurring arrears that are compounded because of monthly interests.

Arsenio Jallorina, MPSTA president, blamed the GSIS’ "inefficient" collection system for the problem on non-remittance. "The agencies are liable for this after they have deducted the premium contributions from our monthly pay."

The teachers also asked the CA to stop the GSIS from making them pay contributions and loan payments that the Department of Education (DepEd) has failed to remit. They said it is unjust for the GSIS to automatically convert these unremitted contributions into a personal loan of the employee with an average interest of 24 percent a year, or double the regular rate charged by banks for personal loans.

"It is not our fault, why then does Garcia penalize us? This is contrary to the social insurance principle which is to give service beneficial to its members and assure their dignified retirement," petitioners said.