Misled GSIS retirees still waiting for P-Noy’s action

On Oct. 7, 2011, as a final step to fully comply with the principle of Exhaustion of Administrative Remedies, we wrote a fifth follow-up letter to President Aquino, appealing  for reconsideration and seeking relief from the persistent denial and refusal by the Government Service Insurance System of our pending—more than a decade-old—claims for the payment of our:  (l) accumulated annuity pensions; and (2) monthly old-age pension for life. We have had these claims for the past 13 years since our compulsory retirement on July 14, 1998, after 35 years of faithful and dedicated service to our government and our people. Sadly, our fifth follow-up letter has remained unacted to date, although we sent the letter through LBC.

The appeal is more of a class action, not only for ourselves but also for similarly situated, pensionless, impoverished, pitiful retirees who are surviving at near-pauper existence in their late 70s, 80s or even 90s. We are, perhaps, unwitting victims of our naivete of the nuances of the country’s many retirement laws! Which unfortunately misled us to retire erroneously under the Gratuity system (Republic Act 1616) at a time when we were already legally eligible to retire under either the “Magic 87” formula as provided by the Annuity Pension retirement system under RA 660, or the Old-Age Pension for Life retirement system under Presidential Decree 1146 and RA 8291.

GSIS insists on denying our appeal despite the implied repeal of RA 1616, as far as the status of the peculiar Senior Citizens pensionless retirees are concerned, pursuant to PD 1146 (specifically the fourth “Whereas” and Section 51 thereof), and Section 3 of RA 8291; and, more importantly, in the well-settled doctrine laid down in the analogous twin Supreme Court rulings that have now become final and executory (GSIS, Cebu City Branch v. Montesclaros, GR No. 146494, July 14, 2004, en banc, and GSIS v. De Leon, GR No. 186560, Nov. 17, 2010), decreeing that: “retirement benefits are a matter of property interest, so that in a pension plan where employee participation is mandatory, employees have contractual or vested rights in the pension where the pension is part of the terms of employment; hence, no law can deprive such person of his pension rights without due process of law.”

—BUENAVENTURA SEMILLA,

GSIS member (33071400412);

PRO, Cebu Chapter, Philippine Association

of Retired Persons (PARP) Inc.,

[email protected]