GSIS increases basic pensions to P5,000

State-run Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) is increasing the basic minimum monthly pension for old-age and disabled retirees to P5,000 starting this month.

 

The pension fund for government employees noted in a statement that pensioners entitled to less than P5,000 will receive the new monthly pension, while those receiving over P5,000 but less than P8,000 will received P200 more.

 

Under the GSIS Act of 1997,  the GSIS board of trustees may recommend to the President an adjustment in the basic monthly pension provided that is not less than P1,300.

 

GSIS president and general manager Robert G. Vergara said the increase was made in response to the needs of “old-age” and “disability” pensioners amid rising prices of basic commodities.

 

Some 57,000 pensioners will get the new minimum pension and another 50,000 will qualify for the P200 increase, Vergara added. 

 

Of the 220,000 GSIS retirees on record, some 35 percent comprised the old-age pensioners receiving below P5,000.

 

This development will shorten by one year the pension fund's social insurance actuarial fund to 2045 from 2046, according to the GSIS chief.

 

The increase in monthly pensions forms part of the initiatives the GSIS launched in 2010 to improved the service its retired members get from the fund, the statement said. 

 

The other measures include an expanded partnership with government-owned Land Bank of the Philippines as an alternative servicing bank, the deployment of 500 additional wireless processing kiosks in key cities, municipalities, and big government agencies such as the Department of Education.

 

GSIS also relaxed the qualifications for survivors' pension and payments of proportionate pensions. —  SOA/VS, GMA News