New GSIS chief must probe predecessor

In 2008 Winston Garcia caused the filing of libel charges against several newspapermen, including this columnist, who had echoed questions raised by public school teachers against him.

The teachers were complaining over how Garcia, as president and general manager of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), had either slashed or withheld their benefits—as well as those of other members of the state pension fund—without so much as a “by your leave.”

The libel cases, as far as I know, continue to hang. The complaints against The Manila Times editor-in-chief Rene Bas and me, for instance, are still pending before a Pasay City prosecutor.

The lawsuit brought against us by the Garcia-led GSIS management required us, respondents, to present ourselves before prosecutors on numerous occasions, to secure representation from lawyers, to prepare legal briefs and other hassles, which all cut into our meager earnings and tight work schedules.

Needless to say, the GSIS management sought to harass us into silence as well as to intimidate others in our trade who had thought of adding their voice to the mounting complaints over how Garcia—who belongs to a politically influential family in Cebu that supported former President Gloria Arroyo—was running the state pension fund.

To some extent, it succeeded.

The Garcia-led GSIS management probably took a cue from an old Chinese saying: Kill the chicken and frighten the monkeys. Save for Dick Pascual of the Philippine Star, most of the journalists charged with libel write for small-circulation dailies.

For the rest of the respondents, our ability to influence public opinion was limited. However, the charges brought against us were evidently enough to cause our colleagues in the newspapers with bigger circulations to avoid commenting altogether on Garcia’s questionable management of the GSIS.

In fact, one association of senior columnists and press agents even issued a statement that seemed to support the Garcia-led GSIS management’s decision to file libel charges against us. While paying lip service to press freedom, the association concluded that those who “deserved” to be sued for libel should be brought to court—or words to that effect.

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

In the last two years of the Arroyo administration, no issue against the Garcia-led GSIS management got significant coverage in the major dailies or even the networks—except in the columns of the libel-suit respondents.

Indeed, the simians were sufficiently scared into submission.

Much of the media chose to look the other way, and the Garcia-led GSIS management was able to do just about anything it pleased.

With his patroness self-demoted to the status of Pampanga congresswoman, Garcia has had to leave the GSIS. Thank goodness!

Now, questions about how Garcia and his underlings ran the state pension fund have cropped up again.

In a recent press statement, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) has called on the new GSIS chairman—former Negros Occidental Governor Daniel Lacson—to fully disclose the condition of the state pension fund’s Global Investment Program (GIP) worth, as of last disclosure, $565 million or about P26 billion.

“Over the last two years, the global financial markets have been highly turbulent,” said former Sen. Ernesto Herra, now TUCP secretary-general. “We reckon the GIP has been shaken by the turmoil.”

During his campaign sorties in the run-up to the May 10 elections, even former Sen. Benigno Aquino 3rd was frequently asked by retired government employees over where their GSIS pensions went, Herrera recalled.

“When retirees don’t get their pension on time, they don’t care about the excuses for the delay. They will simply suspect that their pensions have been stolen one way or the other. Or that GSIS does not have the money, and is simply stalling payments,” Herrera said.

The labor leader said the new GSIS chief must reveal the management fees being paid by the pension fund to Credit Agricole Asset Management Ltd. and ING Investment Management for overseeing the GIP.

GSIS launched the GIP in April 2008. Under pressure from TUCP, certain senators and the some media quarters, GSIS eventually published a summary of the GIP in newspaper ads later that year.

GSIS then declared P10.456 billion worth of investments in “global fixed income” instruments, P4.127 billion in global equities, P3.08 billion in global property securities and P8.875 billion in cash, short-term notes and other investments.

GSIS, however, failed to disclose the exact stakes it had in every type of instrument, despite requests for it to post the details on its website. It was urged to include the exact amounts invested in every bond, note, common stock and currency swap, at cost.

The pension fund simply claimed that some 40 percent of the GIP was sunk in fixed-income instruments, including sovereign bonds or treasury notes issued by the governments of the United States, Germany, Canada, France, Japan, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, Herrera pointed out.

The lack of transparency during Garcia’s GSIS stint underscored the urgent need for a Freedom of Information law, among others.

The lawsuit brought against my fellow newspapermen and me by the Garcia-led GSIS management is really a minor matter. Harassment of that sort comes with the territory.

What matters, above all, is the interest of the millions of GSIS members who were kept in the dark about how their hard-earned contributions were being used—or misused.

The new top honchos at the GSIS owe these pensioners a much-delayed explanation.

While they are at it, Lacson and his team might wish to look deeper into how Garcia and his minions handled the pension fund. An honest-to-goodness probe would probably lead to some very interesting discoveries.

The journalists he sued might yet be able to cross paths with Garcia and his crew again—this time at the Pasay prosecutor’s office. –DAN MARIANO, Manila Times

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