Government pensioners to get P12,600 Christmas gift

Pensioner members of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) will receive up to P12,600 each as the agency will distribute a total of P1.62 billion in Christmas cash gifts this year.

The state-run pension fund has some 200,000 active pensioner members receiving regular monthly pensions as benefits for retirement, disability or old age.

“We will credit the cash gift to our pensioners’ accounts by December 15,” said Robert Vergara, GSIS president and general manager, in a statement.

Vergara said pensioners who are on suspended status as of Dec. 31, 2011, but who would have regained their active  status by April 30, 2012, are also eligible to receive the cash gift.

Based on the guidelines on the grant of the cash gift, pensioners whose Christmas cash gift in 2010 was more than P10,000 will receive this year the same amount as their current monthly pension, but only up to P12,600.

Those whose cash gift last year was P10,000 or less will also receive an amount equivalent to their current monthly pension, but only up to P10,000.

Higher this year

The P10,000 maximum also applies to pensioners who resumed their regular monthly pension after Dec. 31, 2010.

This year’s Christmas cash gift kitty is P300 million, or 2.3 percent higher than the P1.32 billion in cash gifts given out in 2010.

Earlier this year, Vergara said the pension fund saved $8.5 million, or P370 million, in premiums after bidding out the reinsurance coverage of its big-ticket items.

Last July, Vergara said these items include policies covering the reinsurance needs of the National Power Corp., Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp., National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, and the Metro Rail Transit Corp.

He explained that, in accordance with the law on government procurement reform, the GSIS started to bid out the individual insurance covers of these state agencies based on the value of their insured assets with the GSIS, as early as the last quarter of 2010.