The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) will implement the policy requiring all GSIS pensioners to report annually.
Vilma Fuentes, branch manager of GSIS Cebu, said that a three-month reactivation of pensioners will start yesterday, March 23, up to June 30, 2018 through the implementation of “Annual Pensioners Information Revalidation (APIR)” program.
Under this program, GSIS will require all old-age and survivorship pensioners to appear personally at the GSIS office or use the GSIS Wireless Automated Processing System (GWAPS) kiosk that are located at GSIS offices, provincial capitols, city halls, selected municipal offices and large government agencies to activate their status and ensure the continuous receipt of their pension.
During this period, all pensioners who are 79 years old and below, regardless of birth month will have to undergo the revalidation process and reactivate their status.
Pensioners with permanent total disability, pensioners aged 80 and above or those with medical conditions, legal guardians of incapacitated and/or dependent children, and old-age pensioners who are active GSIS members are not required to report for APIR.
“If they are 79 years old and below with medical conditions or permanent total disability, they can write a request to us so that we can include them in our visitations for revalidation, while if they are 80 years old and above, no need for them to visit our office and we will automatically visit them,” Fuentes said.
She said the program was restored, in order to protect the fund of GSIS and to make sure that the pensioners are the ones who are receiving their pensions and not their relatives.
“There were incidents that a pensioner has already passed away but GSIS continues to release their pensions because the families did not report the matter to us,” She added.
GSIS will also coordinate with the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to check the status of their pensioner members.
She added that GSIS will also conduct APIR caravans in Badian, Boljoon, Carcar, Toledo, Tuburan, Danao, Bogo, Bantayan and Camotes in the whole month of April and May to bring its services closer to the pensioners.
For the purpose of reactivation, pensioners have to bring their GSIS eCard or Unified Multi-Purpose Identification (UMID) card; or any two valid government IDs with picture and signature may be presented.
After the scheduled three-month reactivation period, pensioners are reminded to renew their status during their birth month. Those who will fail to reactivate their status, their monthly pension will be suspended.
Based on their records, Cebu has more than 18,000 pensioners, wherein 13,576 of which are oil-age pensioners while 5,153 are survivorship pensioners.