GSIS resumes benefit payments to retired Napocor workers

After several months of stopping payments, the Government Service Insurance System is resuming the release of monthly benefits to some 1,500 pensioners of National Power Corp. affected by provisions of the power sector reform law.

The GSIS took the step pursuant to a relevant Supreme Court decision and a separate move by the Commision on Audit that “removed legal impediments” against the reinstatement of the members’ benefits.

“We will pay the concerned retirees the accrued amounts covering the period May to October 2011 by Monday, Oct. 17,” GSIS president and general manager Robert G. Vergara said in a statement. “We will also resume payment of their regular pension starting Nov. 8.”

He said the GSIS put on hold since last May pension benefits totaling P147.6 million.

Vergara cited a decision of the Supreme Court dated Oct. 4, 2011, as well as a letter from the COA lifting a previous notice of disallowance and removing “any legal impediment to the payment by the pension fund of these benefits.”

The GSIS chief said the state pension fund “was compelled in May to suspend the payment of retirement and pension benefits in compliance with a 2008 Supreme Court decision.”

The earlier decision stated that more than 8,000 retirees under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2011 could not be entitled to benefits arising from the new law and the GSIS Charter.