by Atty Trixie Angeles
We’ve heard it all. Public school teachers railing against GSIS for, among other things, losing their records of payments and making the teachers accountable and liable for such loses. Government employees are told to update their accounts only to be penalized for any errors in the records kept by GSIS itself. Even most appalling is the GSIS’ insistence that pensioners, many of whom are aging and sick, go to the GSIS main office for processing or receiving their e-cards (don’t get us started on that one). Take note, that even if the pensioner has lived and worked all her life in Mindanao, he or she shall be made to go to the notoriously inaccessible GSIS office in Pasay, right beside Manila Bay. There they are made to line up for hours and sometimes, yes, they have to come back and get back in line for several days. Heart attacks (plural) while standing in line have been known to happen.
But does GSIS care?
GSIS is the one institution that has been kept under the close and protective watch of Mrs. Arroyo, whose well known ties with the Garcia family, (Garcia patriarch is father to GSIS’ Winston and Cebu governor Gwen) date back to Hello Garci fame when the
However, GSIS finally had to find someone to blame for their notoriously unreliable service, and IBM has just been elected to be the whipping boy.
According to GSIS, their IBM computer crashed leaving pensioners and their records in disarray (hello? Nothing new there! GSIS has been known to lose even land titles to mortgaged houses and lots and those titles are just kept in a vault, no computer to blame for that one…). So in all his wisdom, Winston Garcia decides that IBM that business giant with lots of assets he could lay his hands on if he gambles on a judicial system that has worked wonders for his boss. But there is just one problem – GSIS doesn’t have a contract with IBM.
Huh?
GSIS wants to sue IBM even if IBM and GSIS are considered legal strangers. GSIS has a contract with the service provider Questronix Corporation for GSIS’ much ballyhooed computer system. When the system was being put in place, this served as the excuse for any and all delays in the provision of GSIS services such as giving of loans, pensions, etc., which are privileges that GSIS members are entitled to. At any rate, Questronix put the system in place using IBM machines and software. The analogy for this would be if one person bought software from National Bookstore. Under the Consumer Act, National Bookstore would have primary liability for selling defective software. It should then replace the software. However, the supplier would be liable for the damage caused by such software, and if the warranty is not followed. In this case, GSIS is not the consumer, Questronix is. If IBM has a liability it is to Questronix because it bought the software from IBM.
However, Questronix itself says that GSIS is to blame. First, GSIS tried to feed too much information at one time into the system, causing overload. Second, despite warnings, GSIS ignored standard practice and did not institute a back up system (duh?) and did not put in an emergency retrieval system. In short, GSIS could have saved a lot of time, money (not theirs, but their pensioners’) and effort (on government time) if they had just backed up their data, something even we mortal bloggers know to do.
However since GSIS is known more for its finger pointing than for coming up with actual solutions, it now must also solve a new problem. How to pay damages to IBM which is suing GSIS, Winston Garcia and GSIS legal counsel Estrella Elamparo, for libel.
Gen.Ramon Farolan wrote about this issue...In June 2005, the Social Weather Stations in a survey conducted for the Asia Foundation came out with dramatic findings on the two most corrupt government agencies in the country for the month of December 2004. "One out of five respondents named the GSIS and the AFP as having the worst reputations for corruption. Twenty-two percent of survey respondents named the GSIS as the most corrupt, while twenty-one percent said the AFP was the top offender."
At about the same period, Garcia announced that the GSIS had made a remarkable P35 billion profit, a revelation that President Macapagal-Arroyo used as a rationale for Garcia's continued stay in office. At that time, I suggested that we ought to consider this P35 billion profit report carefully. As any experienced executive will tell you, a smart accountant can make the figures in an annual report come out smelling like roses for the benefit of the boss. Just remember the statistics and book-keeping practices used by the executives of Enron and Worldcom that made people believe they were hugely profitable corporations, only to find out in the end that their shares had become worthless. I also added that while it is important for the GSIS to make profits to assure the viability of the system, the GSIS is still basically a service-oriented institution designed to assist and support its members, particularly our senior citizens who devoted the best years of their lives in government service.
Today, Winston Garcia is still president of the GSIS. But if one has been keeping track of Letters to the Editor of various newspapers, the criticisms have not gone away in spite of so-called modernization programs. The latest letter published last Saturday comes from Godofredo O. Peteza of Daet, Camarines Norte. He writes: "I happened to ride in a tricycle recently with a woman pensioner who told me that she did not receive her pension from January to May 2007. She finally received her pension for five months this June 2007. But, she continued, the GSIS will soon be requiring pensioners to submit to another validation, this time through voice recordings, this on top of the required validation through thumb prints."
Last March, in reaction to a GSIS official's letter stating that "whenever GSIS formulates programs and procedures, it has in mind the circumstances of its member-pensioners," Cherry V. Gutierrez of Makati City wrote: "I take exception to this. My father Nestor Gutierrez, 78 years old, has had to put up with this agency's inefficiency as well as insensitivity. Almost blind due to a tumor in his brain and almost unable to walk due to arthritic knees, my father has been to GSIS Quezon City five times since January when he filed his application for an eCard. Every time he goes there, he is given a different reason why his card is not yet ready and why he has not received any of his monthly pensions this year."
FOR ME THIS IS CEBUANO ARROGANCE. Cebuanos should stay in their small little province that they destroyed and not mess around with greater Metro Manila... PERIOD!
"Nestor Gutierrez, 78 years old, has had to put up with this agency's inefficiency as well as insensitivity. Almost blind due to a tumor in his brain and almost unable to walk due to arthritic knees, my father has been to GSIS Quezon City five times since January when he filed his application for an eCard."
yup Cebu is so TRYING HARD to fit in eh probinsya naman!
Cebuanos are STOOOOOOOPID
Thanks for putting this in Dona Victorina blog Trixie.
The use of electronic card or ECard has given us GSIS members a hard time getting access to our own money. Years back, it was faster (in just 2 days, i remember) to avail of GSIS loans before the transactions became automated. It's even more difficult to renew loans now as the members' records are not updated. The computer records always say we have arrears when every month, contributions and payments of loans are deducted from out salary. And it pains us to see or hear GSIS ads (which cost millions from members' contributions)which messages are not at all true, as we all know and experience. Clamors for the removal of Winston Garcia as GSIS head have fallen on deaf ears, for obvious reasons. How long do GSIS members have to suffer under a mismanaged GSIS? We hope our prayers would be answered after the Arroyo administration's term ends.
ilokano said...
FOR ME THIS IS CEBUANO ARROGANCE. Cebuanos should stay in their small little province that they destroyed and not mess around with greater Metro Manila... PERIOD!
June 17, 2009 10:19 AM
Anonymous said...
yup Cebu is so TRYING HARD to fit in eh probinsya naman!
June 17, 2009 10:21 AM
Anonymous said...
Cebuanos are STOOOOOOOPID
June 17, 2009 10:48 AM
_________________________
Hey, don't lump the Garcias along with rest of the Cebuanos. You're no different from other pinoys you attack with your racial nonsense, so do this blog a favor and say something that actually makes sense. If it's too much to ask, you can always find another blog that would cater to your mega-low I.Q.!
Atty. Trixie, please look into the issue of the yearly dividends of GSIS members. The dividends are deposited in Union Bank using our eCard. I had a dividend of P1,437.00 the other year. I was only able to withdraw P1,400.00. The remainning P37.00 was not credited in my last year's devidend. Now, all the rest of my officemates experienced the same.
Please do the math, with the millions of government employees, how much is GSIS raking from this practice?
Salamat po.
dapat lng silang kasuhan. we requested for our land title, until now its F%!#! up. Reasons!!! if service that GSIS want, go manual and solve your problems! GSIS is unbeleivable!!
I can't agree more. They'll be up to pay not only debts they owe to pensioners, they're going to pay for libel that IBM's going to place on them.
Taragis na GSIS yan. They claim to have earned hundreds of millions. Did they explain their "creative accounting?" Di ba sinusuka sila ng COA?
The truth is, GSIS claims as part of their "earnings" even the foreclosed property. Which is not INCOME! Gagong Winston Garcia.
Salamat Victorina. I-expose yang mandarayang mga Garcia na yan. And see just how much Gloria rewards these cheats who helped her steal the elections.
Wag na tayong magpaloko sa mga katulad nito. Salot sa bayan yang si Winston. Sama na nya lola gloria niya.
Dalawang tipo ang mga cebuano. May grasyoso at may mga Garcia. Yung pangalawa mga mandurugas at mandaraya.
May nagsusulat na ukol sa kabaliwan ng gobyernong ito. It oppresses countless government employees, denying them their rightful privileges... salamat victorina. Tama na muna yung mga kabadingan (sa ngayon lang naman). Ganito ang tunay na kulay ninyo!
GSIS President Winston Garcia is evidently a sacred cow for the Arroyo administration.
And his retention at the helm of GSIS gives credence to allegations that he is one of the fund raisers for GMA's electoral bid next year.
Zzzzzzz......
What gall of GSIS to take on corporate giant IBM!
Winston is just a big nothing to them, and they could easily pull out the hubris from his butt and shove it right back into his mouth if they really wanted to.
don't attack cebu and the cebuanos because of winston garcia. we don't like him and his family too.
they are corrupt, especially winston. pakauwaw lang na sila sa mga cebuano nga tarong.
IBM's public statement:
http://www-07.ibm.com/ph/statement/
IBM's public statement:
http://www-07.ibm.com/ph/statement/
"TUSO" NGA YANG "WINSTON GARCIA" NA YAN!
2006 PA PO NAG MATURE ANG POLICY CONTRACT KO, 2010 NA HINDI KO PA RIN NAKUKUHA ANG PROCEEDS. ANG REASON NILA NA ISSUHAN NA DAW AKO NG CHECK.
WALA PO AKONG NATANGGAP NA CHECK.
PINIPILIT NILA NA MAY CHECK WITH NO. ZB99999999 IN THE AMOUNT OF 0.00.
EH SINO PO BA NAMANG GAGO ANG MAG I-ISSUE NG CHECK NA WALA NAMANG HALAGA. MAHAL PA YUNG PAPEL
BIGYAN MO NAMAN NG KAHIHIYAN YUNG KAPATID MONG MATINO TULAD NI "FARLA"
MATAKOT KA NAMAN SA BALIK NG KAWALANGHIYAAN MO!!!! HINDI KA LANG TUSO - DEMONYO KA WINSTON GARCIA BAKA MAHAWA MO YUNG ASST. CHIEF OF STAFF MO NA SI ATTY. EMMANUEL DALMAN!!!