A Heartless GSIS
This is my column today at the op-ed section of the Manila Standard Today. I have an aunt who retired from government service a few years back after many years of slaving it out as a public school teacher in Malabon. Just like most other retirees, she is entitled to a pension from the Government Service Insurance System. She started receiving her monthly pension a couple of years ago. As fate would have it, her petition to migrate to the United States got approved the other year so she has been residing in the US since then. She has petitioned the US government to have her children granted emigrant status as well. The catch is that while the papers are being worked out, she cannot leave the US. In the meantime, the family needs her monthly pension. Unfortunately, that source of money has been cut off because the GSIS has now decreed that all pensioners, regardless of physical or medical condition, must go to a GSIS office personally to prove that they are still alive and breathing. On ...