MANILA, Philippines – Members, pensioners and other claimants of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) will now find it easier to comply with documentary requirements in filing for their social insurance benefits after the pension fund reduced the number of forms that have to be accomplished and submitted.
Around one to seven documents were weeded out from the previous set of GSIS requirements for retirement/separation benefit, life claim, funeral benefit, survivorship benefit, preneed claims, employees’ compensation, request for check replacement, check releasing and over-the-counter (OTC) loans granting.
“For instance, we no longer require three separate clearances from the Office of the Ombudsman, Civil Service Commission and Office of the President from the retiring member,” GSIS President and General Manager Robert G. Vergara explained.
Individually securing clearances from the said government offices proved to be burdensome to the retiring member, both physically and financially. At the Civil Service Commission alone, an estimated 14,000 retiring government employees lined up to request for clearances in September 2013.
The revised guidelines of Republic Act 10154 also known as “An Act Requiring All Concerned Government Agencies to Ensure the Early Release of the Retirement Pay, Pensions, Gratuities and other Benefits of Retiring Government Employees” addressed this by having retiring members submit a single document called the Declaration of Pendency/Non-Pendency of Case.
Retired members who submitted their fully-accomplished retirement application forms are required to submit the Declaration of Pendency/Non-Pendency of Case after receiving a call from the GSIS requesting them to do so.
The declaration serves as the requirement for the release of retirement proceeds through eCrediting. It must be dated or notarized on or after the date of the call from GSIS.
For life claim and survivorship benefits, the same set of clearances was also eliminated.
“Filling out excessive forms is time-consuming and most of the time, costly. Reducing the required documents is one way of curbing red tape that slows down the processing of claims,” Vergara said.
“For the GSIS, the reduced list of documentary requirements also means fewer documents to review and records to store,” the pension fund chief added.
Claimants may file at any GSIS branch nationwide. Only original copies of the documents will be accepted and processed.
For the list of revised documentary requirements: http://www.gsis.gov.ph/downloads/Revised-Documentary-Requirements-As-Of-021014.pdf.
