Lost Christmas bonus?

I am writing the Inquirer in my own behalf and in behalf of my wife Gloria V. Magistrado and other retirees who may have gone through the same experience we have had with the Government Service Insurance System and the Union Bank, its depository bank.

We are both former government employees who retired in April 1993 and 1995, respectively.

From the time we retired we were receiving our monthly pensions and yearly December bonuses in the second week of the following month. To our surprise, however, in January of this year we did not receive our December 2010  bonuses, and up to the present we have yet to receive it.

A check made with the GSIS management in Manila revealed that our bonuses were released on Dec. 30, 2010, and most probably were deposited with the main or principal bank of Union Bank in Makati City. We have been trying to collect these bonuses of ours from the Land Bank branch in Virac, Catanduanes since the second week of January of this year, and every second week of the succeeding months, which is our usual way of collecting our pensions.

By the way, Union Bank has no branch in the island province of Catanduanes, for which reason we have to collect our pensions not from  the Union Bank. I am wondering why GSIS chose Union Bank to be its depository bank, instead of Land Bank which is the government depository bank and which has branches in all provinces of the country.

May I therefore know from the Union Bank management when our bonuses were collected or withdrawn, who was the one who withdrew them, and in what branch were they withdrawn. What steps shall we take to collect our long delayed 2010 bonuses?

—MANUEL A. MAGISTRADO, 022 San Martin St., San Isidro Village, Virac, Catanduanes