EDITORIAL - No end to the misery of teachers

One of the most distressing pieces of news to emerge from the usually fouled up national scene is the one regarding the prospect of nearly 200,000 teachers nationwide losing their GSIS pension fund remittance credits due to inefficiency and lack of care by GSIS and DepEd officials.

In a hearing of the House committee on good government and public accountability, it emerged that the remittance records of up to 198,000 public school teachers nationwide have not been updated past the February 28 deadline set by GSIS but which the DepEd failed to meet.

Worse, officials of both GSIS and DepEd who appeared at the hearing displaced uncanny arrogance and apathy that shocked even the hardened congressmen-members of the committee. To their honors’ faces they were told that there was nothing GSIS and DepEd could do about it.

According to the process, the DepEd automatically deducts pension premium payments from the salaries of teachers and supposedly remits the same automatically to the GSIS. At least this is what the poor public school teachers have come to expect.

But as found out at the hearing, many of the deductions have not actually been remitted to the GSIS. This is probably the reason why, wittingly or unwittingly, many of the teachers records have not been updated.

Either they cannot be updated because there is nothing to update, the automatic deductions not having found their way to their destinations, or there is a deliberate attempt to wipe the slate clean.

But that is not the end to this sad and sorry story. The congressional hearing also found out that a substantial amount of premiums was not remitted to the GSIS by the budget department, resulting in pro-rated deductions that naturally exacts a heavy burden on the teachers.

If Congress has any power at all, and if it has any real intention to derive something meaningful and beneficial from its congressional hearings, it should promptly move to address this problem, which punishes teachers for faults not of their making.