ARMM asks Congress for add’l budget to offset teachers’ GSIS loans

COTABATO CITY – The executive department of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has asked Congress for additional “budget insertions” for the ARMM’s proposed P9.1 billion 2008 fiscal grant to offset huge accounts of some 19,000 teachers with the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS).

The region’s teaching work­­force incurred heavy arrear­ages with the GSIS due to the mishandling by past administrations of monthly premiums and loan payments deducted from the salaries of teachers.

The ARMM’s executive secretary, lawyer Oscar Sam­pulna, said Gov. Datu Zaldy Ampatuan, has told members of the House sub-committee on appropriations, during initial deliberations on the region’s proposed budget Tuesday, that he could not solve the problem of teachers with the GSIS without the help of the legislature. “The governor has also told members of the committee that he merely inherited the problem, which has caused the teachers in the region great miseries,” Sampulna said.

The ARMM’s proposed 2008 budget is broken down into P5,075,136 for personal services;  P2,148,697 for maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE), and P1,420,482 for capital outlay.

Sampulna said more than half of the proposed P9.1 billion budget is intended for salaries of employees in different line agencies and support offices.

Bai Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, the ARMM’s solicitor-general, have asked for P1,640,098 insertion into the region’s proposed budget for the Ampa­tuan administration to settle some of the arrearages of teachers with the GSIS.

The local branch of GSIS has earlier announced it has suspended the processing of loans by ARMM teachers due to still unpaid accounts incurred during past administrations.             – John Unson