MANILA, Philippines?Amid the ongoing row with a major technology firm, coupled by a flurry of complaints from hundreds of irate members trying to get a calamity loan, the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) introduced a new information security executive tasked to put back order in its messy database problem.

Jonathan Pineda, a former security executive of an international bank, recently sat as the GSIS?s vice president for Information Security, the first position opened up for the government agency.

In his first meeting with several journalists, Pineda said the new GSIS Information Security Office would serve as a ?clearing house? for all IT-related implementations within the agency, evaluating these projects if these comply with certain IT industry standards.

Similar to a chief information officer, Pineda will measure the GSIS?s own IT compliance to standards of access control, internal and external security, business continuity, risk, management, disaster recovery, among others.

?My initial responsibility is to stabilize our IT structure, ensure safety checks are in place to prevent recurrence of incidences and evaluate problems. The GSIS is following the trends of the IT industry. As such, we have to ensure the protection of our data,? Pineda said.

In a larger perspective, Pineda is present to find the main cause and prevent a recurrence of the database debacle that put GSIS in a legal battle with IBM and systems integrator Questronix after a major problem in the agency?s database implementation appeared.

Several months ago, the GSIS filed charges against IBM and Questronix for failing to find the root cause and a solution to its Integrated Loans, Membership, Acquired Assets and Accounts Management System (ILMAAAMS), which crashed on at last two occasions.

Both IBM and Questronix denied any liability for the crashes, maintaining that the problems could have been caused by GSIS use of the system itself.

After only sitting as the GSIS Information Security Officer for barely a month, Pineda is already facing the problem of keeping their database software running amid a flood of members wanting to get calamity loans.

Members have already complained that their applications on the GSIS?s automated loan application kiosks are taking long. Sometimes the network goes down for hours, if not days, angering members who accused that available money for loans has run dry.

?We have the money intact. The problem is still the database for the automated loan application kiosks, which also recently bogged down. While we don?t have it running yet, we have the manual system for the applications, though it will take a bit longer,? Pineda said.

The GSIS announced that it has about P5 billion in available funds for members applying for calamity loans. Pineda said the agency has released loans for 103,000 members, out of the 130,000 applications made from October 1.

And while waiting for the effects of the calamity to subside, Pineda said the GSIS is already in the process of working out a deal to migrate from IBM?s DB2 database software to its competitor, Oracle.

IBM?s servers are also to be replaced by another server competitor, HP.

With the negotiations already started, Pineda said they could start migration by the end of the year, to be completed by January 2010.

As for the legal battle against IBM and Questronix, Pineda said he is not involved in it, but rather on keeping the GSIS services up and running.