Teachers launch GSIS refund campaign in Cebu

MANILA, Philippines - Militant teachers have launched in Cebu province a nationwide campaign to demand refunds from the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS). The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) urged teachers to fight for the scrapping of the GSIS policy of automatically deducting alleged arrears from their claims and benefits. "Even though Cebu is the political stronghold of the Garcia clan of GSIS President and General Manager Winston Garcia, we teachers of Cebu are united in condemning the unjust and illegal policies of GSIS," said ACT Cebu City chapter chairman William Alterado, in an article posted on the ACT website. "We'll do our part in ensuring the success of the GSIS refund campaign," he added. ACT chairman Antonio Tinio, who is currently facing five libel cases from Garcia, urged public school teachers, who compose over a third of the GSIS membership, to fight the policy. He said ACT's "GSIS Refund Now!" campaign will involve the filing of a lawsuit to nullify the automatic deduction policy, a demand for the refunding of all deductions illegally made against members, and the prosecution of GSIS officials responsible for the said policy. "Our ACT chapters nationwide are giving out forms that will help teachers victimized by CLIP to document their experience," Tinio said. He said the present GSIS policy, the Claims and Loans Interdependency Policy (CLIP), "tramples on the right of members to due process and in fact violates the GSIS law itself." Tinio said Section 41(w) of the said law stipulates that the GSIS Board of Trustees must file a legal action or suit before the proper court or body to recover any arrears incurred by its members. "From the point of view of members, the law provides them with the protection of due process. The legal proceeding gives them an opportunity to challenge or disprove the claims being made by GSIS against them. On the other hand, the automatic deduction policy is unilateral, summary, and not subject to appeal. It violates the members' right to due process," he said. Tinio added that the policy is made more unjust due to the shoddy state of the GSIS membership records. He said GSIS is notorious for maintaining an incomplete and/or erroneous membership database, especially regarding the posting of premium payments. GSIS itself acknowledges that they are currently engaged in a massive "reposting" project to bring these up to date, he added. Yet, he said this does not keep them from using this flawed database to generate claims of "premiums in arrears" against its members, which are then automatically deducted the moment they claim a benefit or take out a loan from the GSIS. "In most cases these so-called premiums in arrears are false, merely the result of their failure to post premium payments. Members are thus subjected to double deductions," he said. He cited the case of a teacher in Tarlac who was entitled to a maturity claim of P93,185.44 but who only received P50,889.72 after the GSIS automatically deducted P42,295.72 in alleged premiums in arrears. "This case is typical, it's happening to GSIS members all over the country, and its one of the main reasons why there's such widespread anger against the GSIS. Garcia is fond of extolling the billions of pesos in earnings made by GSIS under his stewardship. The fact is that most of it has been made through illegal deductions from the benefits of members," he said. - GMANews.TV