GSIS pensioners to get cash gifts starting Dec. 1

MANILA, Philippines — The state-run pension fund Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) has set aside P3.2 billion to give away Christmas cash gifts worth at least P10,000 each to pensioners starting Dec. 1.

In a board resolution published on Sunday, the GSIS said that pensioners who received a cash gift of above P10,000 last year will receive this year one month’s worth of current pension not exceeding P12,600.

Those who got below P10,000 in 2020, meanwhile, would get one-month current pension amounting to a maximum of P10,000.

As for pensioners who upon retirement already secured five years’ worth of their pension, if the guaranteed five-year period already lapsed in December 2020 and they currently receive their regular monthly pension, then they will receive a maximum cash gift worth P10,000.

The GSIS said old-age/retirement and disability pensioners were entitled to this year’s cash gift.

Basic survivorship and dependent pensioners will not get the cash gift. Neither will recent retirees that separated from government service between the years 2017 and 2021 who had availed of the immediate life pension option or cash payments worth 18 times the basic monthly salary as allowed under Republic Act No. 8291, or the GSIS Act of 1997.

The GSIS enjoined pensioners who were currently on suspended status due to noncompliance to the now online annual pensioners’ information revalidation (Apir)—the pension fund’s “proof of life”—to activate their status on or before April 30, 2022, so they can receive their Christmas cash gift for 2021.

The GSIS board chaired by former Supreme Court Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin approved this year’s budget for the annual Christmas cash gift — a tradition since 1974 — on Oct. 26.