GSIS restores suspended pensions during quarantine

State-run Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) has restored the suspended pensions of retirees who failed to comply with the annual reporting requirement during the quarantine period.

In a statement, Rolando Ledesma Macasaet, GSIS president and general manager, said the pension fund’s annual pensioners information revalidation (APIR) is now temporarily suspended until the end of this year.

For this reason, Macasaet said that GSIS credited the suspended pensions of those pensioners who failed to comply with APIR on their birth month from March to July.

"We need to exhaust all means to protect our pensioners and members from the transmission of the virus so for the rest of the year, we are not requiring them to report to GSIS either physically or via online,” Macasaet said.

“Despite this, they will continue to receive their monthly pension without letup," he added.

The APIR suspension comes a week after the pension fund required its pensioners who were unable to go to a GSIS office physically to instead report through Viber, Facebook (FB) Messenger, Skype or Zoom.

The previous online APIR was in addition to GSIS’ other methods via GWAPS kiosk, personal appearance, and home visit.

Instead of this year, Macasaet said that GSIS will institutionalize the online reporting of pensioners or Online APIR by 2020.

“GSIS will take the initiative to contact pensioners on their birth month for their APIR through widely-used videoconferencing platforms such as Viber, Facebook Messenger, Zoom or Skype — the pensioners will be the one to choose the method they prefer," Macasaet explained.