GSIS allots P2.6B for 235,180 pensioners

STARTING Dec. 10, state-run pension fund Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) will give Christmas cash gifts totaling P2.6 billion to 235,180 pensioners.

This year’s allocation for disability and old-age pensioners was 8-percent more than the P2.4 billion granted last year, GSIS president and general manager Robert G. Vergara said in a statement on Wednesday.

Pensioners, who received cash gifts amounting to more than P10,000 last year, will get one-month pension not more than P12,600 this year, according to the GSIS.

Those who got cash gift benefits worth P10,000 or lower in 2014, will get one month of pension of not more than P10,000 this year.

“Retirees who availed (themselves) of five-year lump-sum retirement benefit and have become pensioners after Dec. 31, 2014, will get their cash gift for the first time this year in an amount equivalent to their one-month pension up to a maximum of P10,000,” the GSIS said.

“Pensioners living abroad and those in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, who are on suspended status as of Dec. 31, 2015, are also eligible to receive this benefit provided they activate their status not later than Apr. 30, 2016. They will receive their cash gift not later than May 31, 2016.”

As for dependent and survivorship pensioners as well as retirees who will receive their regular monthly pension after Dec. 31 this year, the GSIS said they “are not entitled to receive the cash gift.”

Also ineligible to receive the cash gift are the following:

New retirees from 2011 to 2015, as they will receive their first cash gift five years after their retirement date;

Members who were separated from the service from 2006 to 2015 before reaching age 60, as they will be entitled to the benefit five years after regularly receiving their pension;

Pensioners under Republic Act No. 7699 (Portability Law); and

Pensioners receiving prorata pension.