GSIS announces emergency COVID-19 loan for pensioners
MANILA, Philippines — State pension fund Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) announced Thursday that it was opening an online COVID-19 Emergency Loan program.
In a statement issued Thursday morning, GSIS president and general manager Rolando Macasaet said that members may avail of the 20,000-peso loan, payable in three years at only 6% interest per annum.
Since the loan is covered by an insurance, he said, it would be deemed fully paid in the event that the borrower passes away.
According to Macasaet, interested borrowers are to complete a set of requirements to the fund, which include:
- Duly-accomplished Emergency Loan application form;
- Picture or scanned copy of the borrower’s GSIS electronic card (eCard) or Unified Multi-Purpose Identification (UMID) card, (if unavailable, the borrower may submit two valid IDs) and
- Photo of the borrower holding the filled-out application form.
"This is the first time that GSIS is offering emergency loan on a national scale. Previously, emergency loan is offered by GSIS to declared calamity areas which are usually confined to a particular province or region," Macasaet said.
"The last time GSIS offered a region-wide emergency loan was in 2013 when Typhoon Yolanda struck almost all provinces in the Visayas."
All GSIS members of good standing are qualified to avail of the COVID-19 Emergency Loan, whose funds are electronically credited to the borrowers’ eCard or UMID card once application is approved.
Active members with UMID cards may also apply through GSIS Wireless Automated Processing System (GWAPS) kiosks.
However, GSIS also listed members who may not avail of the loan, including:
- those who are on leave without pay;
- those who incurred arrears in paying the mandatory life insurance contributions;
- those who have unpaid loans for more than six months.
"To ensure that borrowers would still have adequate take-home pay after availing of the loan, borrowers should have a minimum take-home pay of P5,000 following the deduction of monthly premium contributions and loan amortizations from their salary," GSIS said in their statement.
Pensioners who are senior citizens or persons with disability may apply for the loan if the resulting net monthly pension after loan availment is at least 25% of their basic monthly pension to allow for the member’s monthly expenses. — Franco Luna
Members and pensioners who have inquiries on the loan program may visit the GSIS website, www.gsis.gov.ph; GSIS Facebook account, @gsis.ph; send email to [email protected]; or call the GSIS contact center at 8847-4747 if in Metro Manila or 1-800-8-847-4747 (for Globe and TM subscribers) and 1-800-10-847-4747 (for Smart, Sun, and Talk ‘N Text subscribers).
Emergency Loan application forms are downloadable from the GSIS website at this link. Accomplished requirements must be sent to the designated email address according to the members’ place of work or pensioners’ residence: [email protected] (for borrowers in NCR including Quezon City and Cavite); [email protected] (North Luzon); [email protected] (South Luzon); [email protected] (Visayas) or [email protected] (Mindanao).
- Latest
- Trending
