Tarlac homeowners protest GSIS notice of eviction

TARLAC CITY, Philippines - Hundreds of homeowners at Teresa Homes Subdivision in Barangay Tibag, Tarlac City, started a continuing picket on Friday at the gate of the subdivision to protest the move of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) to evict them from their homes. The protesters, mostly public school teachers, set up a barricade at the subdivision gate starting at 7 a.m. Friday and committed to hold daily picket to prevent the state insurance fund from carrying out the eviction. Candida Tiglao, president of the Teresa Homes Subdivision Homeowners Association, said the GSIS has served them individual notices last December 4, asking them to vacate their property within 30 days due to the cancellation of their deed of conditional sale covering the property. The protesters called the eviction notice unjustified and arbitrary. Tiglao said they are all victims of onerous housing loan policy of the GSIS implemented by GSIS president and general manager Winston Garcia. She said the GSIS makes use of the "Deed of Conditional Sale" as instrument to unjustly take back their houses and lots by foreclosing the property after three consecutive missed payments, with the previous payments treated as rent even as they are required to pay the full amount, including interest. A teacher of the Tarlac National High School who retired in 2005, Tiglao has applied for housing loan in 1993 amounting to P353,000 with the GSIS, but this has ballooned to over P1.69 million, the bulk of which consists of compounded interest on the principal. "What is worse, the GSIS has withheld my retirement lumpsum and automatically appropriated my monthly pension for the last three years as repayment of my arrears," she lamented. "Wala na nga akong trabaho, wala pang pera, at ngayon mawawalan na rin ng bahay na pinagsikapan kong ipundar at may papalaking utang pa [I am no longer employed, I no longer have any source of income, and now I am in danger of losing my house and at the same time mired in debt]," she said. About 600 other public school teachers in Tarlac province who are also homeowners at Teresa Homes are about to suffer the same fate that befell Tiglao. Several others come from as far as Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, Zambales, Pangasinan, and even Cavite. Claudette Sicat, chairperson of the Tarlac Alliance of Concerned Teachers, said the notice to vacate was issued in bad faith, noting that this is contrary to what they have agreed on with the during a dialogue with the GSIS August 21of last year. “The homeowners demanded a thorough review of their housing loan records and the GSIS agreed to do so. Pending resolution of this issue, the GSIS should have held in abeyance the issuance of this notice," Sicat said. Sicat added that during this dialogue the GSIS also found out that irregularities were committed by the Teresa Homes developer and its agents in the processing of housing loans in collusion with GSIS local officials and for which the latter were administratively dealt with. "But despite this, the GSIS failed to provide the concerned homeowners at least the needed debt relief or condonation of undue interest," Sicat said. The GSIS management was not immediately available for comment. - GMANews.TV