PUERTO PRINCESA CITY, Palawan — The local office of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) here Thursday reminded its 3,151 old-age and survivorship pensioners to personally appear in any of its offices for the Annual Pensioners Identification Revalidation (APIR).
GSIS Palawan Branch Manager Marina Ignacio said this is because they are required to reactivate their status to avoid disruptions in their monthly pension benefits.
“Our old-age and survivorship pensioners, 79 years old and below, are required to report to the GSIS starting March 23 until June 30, 2018, to reactivate their status as pensioners,” she said.
Ignacio said those who cannot appear due to sickness and disabilities do not need to go, but have to request for home visits from GSIS personnel or use their agency’s wireless automated processing system (GWAPS) kiosks.
“Those who cannot go because of sickness or because they are bedridden, all they need to do is to request for home visits from our branch here,” said Ignacio.
She warned that if they fail to appear after June 30, their pension benefits would be temporarily suspended by the GSIS in July.
Pensioners whose birth months are January to June will have to report to the GSIS branch or use the GWAPS kiosks in Brooke’s Point, Narra, Taytay, Roxas, Robinsons Place-Palawan, City Hall Building, and Provincial Capitol for their reactivation.
“We are doing this to safeguard our GSIS funds because we’ve had cases of pensioners who had passed away and yet we’re still paying pension benefits due to failure in reporting. We’ve lost a huge amount of funds because of overpayment,” she added.
Ignacio cited a case in Culion town, where an overpayment of more than PHP1 million was made to the caretaker of a pensioner who had already died.
“We have a lot of overpayment cases in Palawan. Imagine, if that is happening in the whole country, then the GSIS (would be) losing funds,” she said.
The three-month reactivation period from March 23 to June 30 will involve 2,320 old-age pensioners and 831 survivorship pensioners in Puerto Princesa and Palawan’s 23 municipalities.
APIR caravans, she said, will also be set up in selected municipalities to bring services closer to pensioners and help them.
“This is very important as we, at the GSIS, want to ensure that the System will be sustainable to benefit our present and future pensioners,” she said.
For the purpose of reactivation, pensioners have to bring their GSIS eCard or Unified Multi-Purpose Identification (UMID) card. If the UMID card or eCard is not available, any two valid government-issued IDs with picture and signature may be presented. (Celeste Anna Formoso/PNA)
