GSIS may hire private manager for P15-B investible funds

Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) President and General Manager Winston Garcia is planning to farm out from P10 billion to P15 billion of the GSIS’ investible funds to a private fund manager.

Securing the services of a private fund manager, Garcia said, would "depoliticize" the investment decision of the GSIS.

Garcia has been criticized for investing the GSIS’ funds in Equitable PCI Bank and Megaworld during the time of deposed President Joseph Estrada and even in purchasing the famous Juan Luna painting.

Garcia, however, said that he would still have to get the concurrence of Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima for his plan to let a private fund manager handle GSIS’ funds.

Garcia said the GSIS would also entertain offers from interested local and foreign fund managers.

Hiring a professional fund manager, Garcia explained, would ensure that they have the necessary financial expertise and that their investment decisions would be "insulated from politics."

Under the GSIS Charter, the state pension fund is allowed to invest up to 10 percent of its total portfolio in the stock market.

As of December 2002, the GSIS’ assets stood at P245.9 billion, while its actuarial reserves amounted to P212.9 billion.

The GSIS last year remitted P1 billion to the National Treasury as the government’s dividend from GSIS’ operations.

The amount, the biggest government dividend in 66 years, came from the income the GSIS generated from its General Insurance Fund (GIF) where GSIS puts its earnings from government property insurance as mandated by the GSIS Act of 1997.

The GIF is different from the Social Insurance Fund (SIF), where all the contributions of GSIS members are kept.

The turnover to the government of its dividend from the GSIS operations was the first in eight years.

The last time the government got its dividend from GSIS was in 1997 when it received P200 million.

Previous to that in 1991, GSIS turned over P100 million as the national government’s dividend from the system’s operations.