Government Service Insurance System

This is one paper work you can take sitting down.

Without leaving their workstations, GSIS (Government Service Insurance System) eCard holders can now apply for authentic copies of their civil registry documents, pay for these online and even have them delivered right at their doorsteps.

This can be done by utilizing the combined efficiency of the National Statistics Office’s “e-census” facility and the online payment feature of the GSIS eCard. To obtain certified copies of birth, death, marriage—or even certificates of no marriage record—one only needs to go to the e-census website via www.e-census.com.ph. By clicking on the “request” and “apply certificates” buttons, one can fill out an electronic “requester information form,” similar to the application forms available in NSO offices. After this, the applicant can choose the civil registry documents he needs. Once he’s done, he can click the “submit request” button to have the e-census process his requested papers. When all the document requests are submitted, the applicant will receive a “request reference number” (or a “batch reference number,” if he is applying for two or more documents).

GSIS eCard holders can then take note of these reference codes and log on to the eCard’s Internet banking facility thru www.unionbankph.com/GSIS. At no cost, a GSIS member can enroll for this facility by calling 810 4747 (within Metro Manila) or 1-800-10-8884747 (to call toll-free within the Philippines).

An eCard holder can then put in his 16-digit eCard number and his ATM personal identification number (PIN) to log on to online banking. The member can afterwards click the “Pay Bills” menu and choose “E-Census/Unisys Public Sector.” Here, the applicant keys in the reference code and the payment amount as provided by the e-Census.

In a week or so, the applicant can expect his documents delivered to the mailing address he provided. To be on the safe side, an applicant can print the e-Census confirmation page and the eCard electronic receipt, in case there is delay or misunderstanding in the application.

Apart from being a device for online banking, the eCard is a GSIS membership ID card, an ATM card, a hospitalization discount card (GSIS Hospitalization Support Program), and a tool for online GSIS transactions.

The eCard was conceived in line with the directive of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to reform government bureaucracies by, among others, modernizing and at the same time simplifying transactions.

The Government Service Insurance System’s (GSIS) Museo ng Sining continues to be a big hit as busloads of visitors flock the museum almost daily since the beginning of the month to check out its vast collection of art works. From August 1 to August 26 of this year, the Museo ng Sining has received a total of 12,334 visitors, mostly young students eager to view the works of Filipino art maestros.

Eric Zerrudo, GSIS Vice President for Physical Resources, said August is typically the start of the peak season for the GSIS museum. He said the influx of visitors is likely to continue up to February next year.

With such trend, he said it is evident that students compose the bulk of visitors because the period falls during the school season.

Zerrudo said hundreds of GSIS members also take the time to drop by the museum, especially after they finish their usual transactions with the state pension fund.

The GSIS Museo ng Sining maintains 162 artworks, mostly creations of Filipino national artists.

The collection on display includes 11 Fernando Amorsolo paintings, 14 abstract paintings of Hernando Ocampo, 13 tapestries of Federico Alcuaz, and artworks of Vicente Manasala and Carlos “Botong” Francisco.

But the most popular art piece in the museum remains the “Parisian Life,” arguably one of the most important works of the national hero Juan Luna. “Parisian Life” is a 44-inch by 39-inch painting that depicts an unidentified French woman sitting in a restaurant. More significantly, it has a scene which shows our national hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal, Dr. Ariston Bautista-Lin, and Luna in animated conversation. Visits to the GSIS museum come free of charge. It is open from Tuesdays through Saturdays.

Arrangements for group visits, such as field trips, can also be made by calling Mayette Aguilar and Leslie Anne Fangonil at telephone number 551-1301.

The Government Service Insurance System has acquired various state-of-the-art medical equipments, including three of the latest magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines available in the market today, for the GSIS Hospitalization Support Program aimed at providing its members with quality and affordable medical services.
          The equipments are already deployed in designated partner hospitals of the GHSP, under which GSIS members are entitled to a 50% discount in the use of the GSIS-acquired machines, as well as additional discounts in professional fees, room and board, medicines and medical procedures, among others.
          The GHSP partner hospitals are Lorma Medical Center in San Fernando, La Union, Perpetual Succour Hospital in Cebu City, Capitol Medical Center in Quezon City and the UST Hospital in Manila.
GSIS President and General Manager Winston Garcia said GSIS members, including out-patients, may use of any of the GSIS-acquired equipments and machines in the partner hospitals that are most accessible to them. Dependents of GSIS members are also entitled to a flat 10% discount in fees and other services from these hospitals.
          Mr. Garcia said that for Lorma Medical Center, the GSIS-acquired a Mobile C-Arm which is used for angiography, a mobile X-ray, a 4D Color ultrasound, and a .3 Tesla MRI used for whole body scan, mostly for soft tissues like the brain and lungs.
          Perpetual Succour Hospital, on the other hand, was awarded a similar .3 Tesla MRI machine, as well as a dual-slice CT scan which is used in virtual endoscopy, brain perfusion, angiography, colonoscopy, automated vessel measurement and cardiac function analysis.
          Capitol Medical Center received under the GHSP the latest MRI machine, a .4 Tesla.
          The University of Santo Tomas Hospital got a larger assortment of smaller machines and equipments under the program, including a Mobile C-Arm; a 4D color ultrasound; an EMG machine which is used to treat muscle disorders; an endoscopy machine that is used in gastrointestinal tract visualization;
A cardiac 4D ultrasound; a cholelaparoscopy which is used for gall bladder stones treatment and removal; an endoscopic ultrasound system; an EEG machine used for brain wave monitoring, sleep apnea and epilepsy; a transcranial Doppler which monitors the blood vessels of the brain; and mobile X-rays.
          “Our members just have to present their GSIS eCards in our partner hospitals and they can automatically avail of the use of our equipments, at a 50% discount,” Mr. Garcia said. “For their dependents, our members have to accompany them to be able to avail of the 10% discounts.”

It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness, so the saying goes. And this, in essence, is what the biggest group of organized workers in the government sector decided to do when it established a help desk to assist fellow government workers when dealing with the different branches of the behemoth Philippine bureaucracy.

The help desk program, dubbed “Dulugan ng Bayan”, is a project of the Philippine Government Employees Association or PGEA. Its details will be discussed in this week’s episode of the GSIS Members’ Hour which airs every Friday at NBN Channel 4 from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) has reminded its members who already have their eCards to inform the GSIS of any change in their personal information, particularly their cellphone numbers, to facilitate the release of their salary loans.

GSIS president and general manager Winston Garcia said through cell phones, members can readily know if proceeds of their salary loan have been remitted to their eCard ATM account.

The GSIS eCard is a multipurpose card -- ID card, ATM card, debit card, and a card to pay utility bills, among others -- where the loan proceeds of members are automatically loaded and which they can withdraw from any Bancnet, Megalink, or Expressnet automated teller machine.

“If they change their cellphone number, the computerized system won’t be able to let them know that their loan proceeds are already approved,” Garcia said.

A GSIS member can update his mobile number by clicking the eGSIS banner in the main page of the GSIS website, for him to be directed to the eGSIS login page (can also be accessed by typing https://www.gsis.gov.ph/e-gsis/login.asp in the address field).

After the member inputs his login name, password, and CAPTCHA code (sequence of letters or digits appearing on the screen), the member’s personal GSIS profile is displayed.

From there, the member can click the “personal data” tab, then click the “update” button to prompt the “Change Registration Data” page. Here, the member can not only update his cell phone number, but also his address, and email address.

The member then confirms that his contact details have been updated once he clicks the “submit” button and the page that reads “You have successfully changed your registration data” appears.

As of August 8, 2005, the GSIS has issued a total of 1,174,790 eCards nationwide, or about 90 percent of its 1.3 million members.

It has also recently started to disburse the proceeds of members’ enhanced salary loans, under the System’s improved salary loan program, through the eCard.

“We are fast moving toward fully achieving a virtually ‘cashless and paperless’ system for a speedy and more efficient service to our members,” Garcia said.

The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and the Province of Basilan, represented by Gov. Wahab M. Akbar, have agreed on the terms to settle the province’s P42.65 million arrearages in premium remittances with the state pension fund, paving the way for the restoration of the loan privileges of GSIS members from the province.

In a Memorandum of Agreement signed by Akbar and GSIS President and General Manager Winston Garcia yesterday (August 15, 2005), both parties agreed to settle the province’s premium arrearages on installment basis within two years starting on July 1, 2005.

                Under the MOA, Basilan acknowledged that it owes GSIS P42.649 million representing premium contributions of its members from January 2002 to December 2004, including interest. The province likewise agreed to pay an initial P10 million upon signing of the MOA, reducing its obligations to P32.649 million.

                During negotiations for the repayment schedule, the GSIS agreed to condone 50% of the interest obligation of Basilan amounting to P3.342 million, thereby reducing further the province’s arrearages to P29.306 million. The final amount is payable within two years, at 12% interest per annum, with a monthly installment of P1.379 million.

                Basilan likewise agreed to remit regularly to the GSIS the current contributions of its personnel and the employer’s share on top of the restructured account.

                As a result of the MOA, Mr. Garcia said the GSIS will lift the suspension of loan privileges and other benefits of the provincial personnel of Basilan.

                “We enjoin all other government agencies that have outstanding accounts with the GSIS to follow the good example of Governor Akbar and the province of Basilan. They owe it to their personnel whose loans privileges and other benefits are affected with their continuing refusal to honor their obligations with the GSIS,” Mr. Garcia said.

                Mr. Garcia said that to date, more than 500 government agencies are on the GSIS list of delinquent agencies due to their arrearages in premium remittances. Some of the officials of these agencies have already been charged criminally, while others are in the process of reconciling, and possibly settling, their accounts with the GSIS.

The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) website has grown to become the most popular Philippine government website in terms of reach and page views, thanks to its internet-based programs such as the multi-purpose eCard.

Top40.cebu-online.com, a site which comes up with daily updates on the most visited Philippine websites, said that as of August 10, gsis.gov.ph ranked 18th in the list of the most visited Philippine sites, based on average Internet traffic for the last three months.

The internet tracking outfit said gsis.gov.ph is the only Philippine government website that made it to the top 20 ranking.

The University of the Philippines – Diliman website (upd.edu.ph) is the next government site that came closest to the GSIS site in terms of popularity, placing 38th. It is closely followed by wowphilippines.com.ph, managed by the tourism department, which placed 39th in the rankings.

Other government websites in the top 100 list are dost.gov.ph (46th), dti.gov.ph (60th), ops.gov.ph (68th), doh.gov.ph (75th), gov.ph (83rd), and census.gov.ph (95th).

In the same list, the GSIS website placed 36,118th overall among the more than 800 million websites in the world wide web which, according to the Pinoy Top 40 site, is an achievement by itself.

“In fact it would be very difficult to get into the Top 100,000 judging how few Philippine-related websites break into this elite circle,” the Pinoy Top 40 site said in its FAQ page.

GSIS President and General Manager Winston Garcia attributed the popularity of the GSIS website to its numerous innovative programs that utilize the internet.

For one, by simply visiting the GSIS site, members can check the updated records of their individual accounts such as premium payments, records of creditable service, life insurance policy data, among others.

GSIS members can even apply for a one-time P5,000 cash advance over the Net, the proceeds of which are disbursed directly to their eCards under the state pension fund’s eGranting system.

The GSIS eGranting system is also a first, being the only loan program offered by a government financial institution (GFI) where the borrower can apply and consequently obtain loan proceeds without going to any GSIS office.

IN A MOVE TO streamline its operations, the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) recently embarked on a system-wide project to establish the procedures in all aspects of its operations that were encapsulated in 69 volumes of manuals of operations, the very first in the history of the state pension fund.

An initiative of GSIS President and General Manager Winston Garcia, the 69 volumes of GSIS ‘Manual of Operations’ (MOOs) were documented covering all the functional groups in the GSIS home office, 40 field offices, and seven district offices. The MOOs have already been distributed to all GSIS offices across the country.

The MOOs are now being strictly implemented to ensure uniformity of procedures in the processing and payment of claims and loans, processing of applications for membership, and receipting and posting of collections, recording and reporting of financial transactions and a variety of other transactions and activities, Mr. Garcia said.
This is the first time the GSIS has ever documented an operations manual after 20 years.

“Operating procedures were undertaken in disparate and varied methodologies over so many decades without any standardized manual. This old practice resulted in financial leakages either due to intentional fraud or simple lapses in controls.  But now, all operating units of the GSIS apply the same policy and follow identical steps, reducing scams and signifcantly reducing processing times” explained Mr. Garcia.

All GSIS executives and employees were also given exams on the contents of the MOOs, a move which, according to Garcia, measures  the essential operating and administrative systems competencies of GSIS employees and instills in them the pension fund’s functions and objectives.

The manuals come in both book and compact disc form. They are continously improved and regularly updated, especially when there are new functions, new polices adopted, or structural reassignments in GSIS.

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