GSIS failure to remit benefits hit

SENATOR Ralph Recto on Tuesday demanded to know why the Government Service Insurance System failed to remit P2.3 billion in retirement benefits to its members.

In a privileged speech, Recto said the GSIS had no excuse for failing to remit the benefits because the national government had always been paying its counterpart contribution.

“The GSIS employer’s contribution, which is the government’s, this year is P22.42 billion,” he said.

“That amount is 24 times the budget of the Department of Energy; 15 times the budget of the Department of Tourism; nine times that of the Department of Trade and Industry; more than thrice that of the Department of Justice; and twice that of the Department of Foreign Affairs.”

Recto said the government would this year pay the GSIS P6 billion more than what would be spent for agrarian reform, P8.8 billion more than all the courts would receive, and P400 million more that the country spent for all 110 state universities and colleges.

He said that for every peso a state employee earned, nine centavos were deducted as a contribution to the GSIS, while the government added 12 centavos as its equity.

This year, the average total contribution per member employed by the national government would reach P44,092, of which P25,196 would be shouldered by the government and P18,897 by the employee.

“We must begin to ask, and they must begin to tell, because GSIS contributions are a payroll tax which employees can’t evade and a funding obligation which their employer can’t avoid,” Recto said.

He said the P25,196 that the national government was spending each year for the retirement of one employee was 63 times more than the annual per capita spending on health, which was P401.

The GSIS, created in 1936, administers a pension fund that provides social security benefits such as compulsory and optional life insurance as well as retirement, disability, accident and death benefits.

The GSIS had 1,371,219 members as of last year, and of whom about 41 percent or 563,550 were mostly teachers. The second biggest bloc, 387,659 or 29 percent, was made up of local government employees. –Rey T. Salita, Manila Standard Today