Recto: Additional representation for teachers, govt employees in GSIS board

In a bid to address the mounting complaints of government employees on poor services and inefficient system at the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), Sen. Ralph Recto is pushing to increase their representation in the GSIS Board to give them more voice and influence in its policy-making.

Under Recto's proposed bill (SB 2129), public school teachers and government employees will each have an additional representation in the GSIS Board. At present, there are eight (8) members in the GSIS Board.

"These additional board seats will hopefully give our teachers and government employees in general, the necessary voice to air their grievances against the persistent allegations of inefficiencies and irregularities in the processing of claims and benefits of members," Recto said.

Recto's bill came about after receiving numerous complaints from teachers and government employees nationwide of the slow processing of GSIS of their claims and erroneous recording of their contributions and loan payments.

Of the 1.4 million members of the GSIS, about 600,000 or 40% are teachers. This number continues to increase as there is a yearly appropriation for the hiring of additional teachers to fill in the newly created positions provided in the General Appropriations Act.

"Increasing the teachers' and government employees' representation in the GSIS Board with people who have expertise in finance will provide them more influence in the formulation of policies and more power to ensure the prudent use of the financial resources of the GSIS," Recto said.

Recto's bill seeks to amend Section 42 of Republic Act No. 8291, otherwise known as "the GSIS Act of 1997".

The current Board membership allows for only one seat to represent teachers, who shall either be the President of the Philippine Public School Teachers Association (PPSTA) or, the President of the Philippine Association of School Superintendents (PASS), while allowing four representatives from the banking, finance, investment, and insurance sectors.

Recto hopes that the additional representations from the ranks of public school teachers and government employees will allow them to be in a better position to effect solutions to the many challenges confronting the government pension system. (Rafael Alas III)

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