ARMM workers want probe over non-remittance of GSIS contribution

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – Employees of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) urged officer-in-charge Mujiv Hataman to prosecute the culprits in the non-payment of P1.9 billion Government Services Insurance System (GSIS)premiums amid automatic deduction from the workers’ salaries.

Records revealed that two ARMM agencies, the education and environment departments, are the most delinquent in remitting the premiums of their employees.

At a dialogue today, emotions rose high inside the Office of the Regional Governor when employees, some of them to retire soon, learned that several offices in the ARMM incurred P1.9 billion obligation to GSIS.

“We never thought the ARMM government would have such a huge accumulated debt. What will happen now to those employees who have religiously been paying their GSIS premiums through automatic salary deductions for two decades now,” said a senior staffer of the ORG.

For his part, Hataman ordered an investigation on the incurred arrearages with GSIS despite an undisrupted flow of funds from the Department of Budget and Management to the regional government since the creation of ARMM in 1990.     

Hataman said his administration is not pointing an accusing finger to any perceived culprit, but is merely focusing on the issue as basis for introducing reforms in the regional bureaucracy.

Hataman said he made the dialogue with officials of the GSIS open to journalists to ensure dissemination of the deeper intricacies of the problems on unpaid insurance obligations.

“This is impunity. This non-remittance of GSIS premiums deducted from the salaries of employees may not be bloody, but it is just like killing the affected employees in `massacre style’,” Hataman said.

Members of the ARMM employees union have endorsed an immediate full-dressed probe by the Commission on Audit and the Department of Justice on the controversy.