Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Seniors stage rally over GSIS pensions

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (Ben Balce/March 6) - A group of retired government employees on Friday trooped to the streets for a demonstration aimed at pressuring the Government Service Insurance Corp. (GSIS) to increase their pensions and give more benefits.

Members of the group, called Government Retirees’ Association of the Philippines (Graphil), braved the heat of the sun as they staged rally near the GSIS office in Carmen, this city.

They demanded that GSIS increase their pensions again by at least 12 percent each year or even more.

Graphil leader Roberto Mabulay said the retirees were dismayed after GSIS reduced the annual pension increase to three percent.

The group also questioned the GSIS’s move to stop giving benefits to the beneficiaries of the deceased.

The organized retirees also demanded that GSIS compute loans based on the actual years of public service of the pensioner.

The GSIS, they said, make the computations based on the number of years when they served as regular employees of the government. Many of them started as casual/contractual employees of the government and were regularized years later.

Former mayors Pablo Magtajas of Cagayan de Oro and Jaime Abarrientos of Talisayan, Misamis Oriental, joined the protesters. Former city health officer Dr. Jacinto Frias also came.

The pensioners accused the GSIS of corruption.

The alleged corruption, they said, has resulted in delays in the release of pensions.

The pensioners claimed they have yet to receive their pensions this year.

“GSIS is cruel,” said Mabulay. “Why they are always delaying our claims? Where are our pensions? They should explain to us what really happened to our pensions.”

“It’s Charter is a social legislation whose mission is to serve its members,” Mabulay, a lawyer who once served in GSIS, told crowd.

Mabulay’s group raised five major concerns:

- restoration of the annual increase of 12 percent which was reduced by the agency to three percent in 2004.

- resumption of Christmas gifts;

- increase in burial benefits from P20 thousand to P40 thousand;

- appointment of retiree to the GSIS board;

- establishment of GSIS bank

Luz Briones, the head of the local GSIS office, appeased the protesters by talking to them.

Briones in a news conference, said GSIS temporarily stopped releasing some of the benefits after the office discovered there were many false claims and discrepancies.

A number of pensioners did not inform GSIS that they have remarried or that their children, who are beneficiaries, have already turned 18.


Briones said she would refer the complaints to her superiors in Manila.

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Saturday, March 03, 2007

GSIS gave P.5b to false claimants yearly

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (Ben Balce / March 3)The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) is purging its list pensioners so half a billion pesos would not go to false claims yearly officials said yesterday.

Edgar Eduardo, GSIS vice president for field operations for Visayas and Mindanao, said GSIS uncovered a financial leakage when it started computerizing its database of spouses and children of deceased GSIS pensioners.

Beneficiaries of “survivorship pension” are entitled to benefits as long as surviving spouses does not re-marry and the children-beneficiaries have not reached 18 years old.

Eduardo said GSIS has been sending checks to about 81,000 beneficiaries of survivorship pensions for quite some time. The average pension is some P2,400 each month.

However, officials discovered that many of the beneficiaries have long ceased to qualify.

Eduardo said the discovery prompted the GSIS to reevaluate all survivorship pension claims.

As part of the “massive cleansing,” GSIS opted to temporarily suspend releasing survivorship pensions since January, he said.

Initially, he said, the GSIS found that 15 thousand of the 81 thousand beneficiaries were no longer qualified. The figure translates to some P36 million monthly or P432 million annually.

Eduardo admitted that the move was unpopular but the GSIS had to decide whether to condone the losses or temporarily suspend the release of survivorship pensions until it could purge the list.

“We chose to do what was right. We had to suspend pensions until we could cleanse our database. The GSIS is the money of government employees. It is immoral to throw away their money just because we are afraid to correct the survivorship pension records,” he said.

Eduardo said beneficiaries need not worry because the “massive cleansing” would be completed before the month ends.


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10 NPAs, 2 soldiers killed in Bukidnon

CAMP EVANGELISTA, Cagayan de Oro City (Ben Balce) - TEN New People’s Army rebels and two soldiers were killed and three other government troopers were wounded in a firefight in Malaybalay City in Bukidnon last Thursday, the military reported yesterday.

Maj. Samuel Sagun, spokesman of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division, said that the military preempted the communists’ plans to sabotage the ongoing festival in the city following the eight-hour firefight.

Sagun said elements of the 26th Infantry Battalion were conducting combat operations in the hinterlands of the city when they caught up with a 30-man fully-armed rebel group belonging to the Front Committee 89 at around 8 a.m.

Sagun said the military commanders sent an MG-520 attack helicopter to provide air support for the soldiers at the height of the firefight but it was not able to able to perform its assigned task.

"It was not able to provide air support because the troops were dangerously close to the rebels, the soldiers might be hit. It just went on a precision flight, it just flew above the encounter area," said Sagun.

He said the fighting lasted up to 4 p.m., resulting in the death of the 10 rebels, two of them females, and two soldiers – Cpl. Antonio Jamanda and Pfc Franklin Tan – and wounding of three other troopers, two of them militiamen.

Also recovered from the scene of the encounter were one M16 and one M14 rifles, a landmine and assorted ammunition, said Sagun, adding that government forces have launched pursuit operations against the remnants of the rebel group.

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Friday, March 02, 2007

Cop slain in gunfight at Buk'n police HQ's gate


MALAYBALAY City (Aurelle P. Arais / March 2)- A policeman was killed in a gunfight at the gate of Bukidnon provincial police office headquarters here at around 9:20 in the evening last Wednesday.

Police Supt. Juan Ratunil, Bukidnon provincial police director identified the fatality as PO2 Procoro Lutrago, a member of the 1003rd provincial police mobile group.

According to reports, the slain policeman was on duty at the gate, when two unidentified persons approached and shot him several times using an unknown caliber of hand guns.

Two other policemen responded prompting an exchange of gun fires.
However, the suspects were able to flee to an unknown direction.

It was not known if any of the suspects was hit during the encounter.

Some witnesses said that the two suspects fled from the crime scene riding a motorcycle.
During the hot pursuit operation, police recovered an abandoned motorcycle at Barangay 9, this city without a license plate number believed used by the suspects.

Ratunil said that before the suspects fled, they grabbed the Armalite rifle of the slain policeman.
The slain policeman succumbed to death with 20 gun shot wounds in various parts of the body.

It was also known if the incident was a direct attack against the provincial police office or personal motive in nature.

As of press time, an investigation is still going on.

Meanwhile, Ratunil clarified that the said incident will not affect the on going Kaamulan Festival and 90th Foundation Day of the province.

Bukidnon provincial police office beefed up its security measures to deter a similar attack in the future.


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