GSIS to start paying survivorship pensions

MANILA, Philippines - The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) will start paying the suspended survivorship pension of qualified Employees’ Compensation (EC) pensioners and dependents, following the lifting of the payments suspension beyond the five-year guaranteed period.

Under the Employees’ Compensation program, the grant of EC survivorship pension, mandated under Presidential Decree 626, is among the benefits given to employees who died from work-connected accident, disease, or disability.

The  previous GSIS administration suspended in 2006  the payment of the pension after the five-year guaranteed period.

GSIS president and general manager Robert Vergara said qualified EC survivors whose pension has been stopped as of August 2012 and those who should be receiving their pension beginning August 2012, will benefit from the ECC resolution.

The state pension fund requires surviving legitimate spouses (of deceased EC pensioners) to submit a certificate of no marriage (Cenomar) issued by the National Statistics Office, stressing that the ECC board resolution disqualifies them from the benefit if they remarried.

All qualified EC survivorship pensioners will also be asked  to enroll for eCard, through which their monthly pension will be credited, after the GSIS has created their pension records.

Pensioners are likewise required to  bring two valid government-issued identification cards and a copy of the letter from the GSIS for easy reference.

The GSIS  and the Social Security System  are the implementing agencies and fund managers of the EC Insurance Fund for the public and private  sectors, respectively.