GSIS employees' cry:
Oust Winston Garcia!

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) employees are demanding the ouster of company president and general manager Winston Garcia for grave corruption and malversation of GSIS funds.

Garcia clings like a leech to his position despite the successive picket-rallies in front of the GSIS national office in Manila staged since the last week of September by employees led by the Kapisanan ng mga Manggagawa ng GSIS (KMG). On September 28, police, on Garcia's orders, tear gassed and bombarded the protesters with water cannons, injuring 20 workers, seven seriously.

GSIS employees are incensed because despite Garcia's claim that the GSIS earned P40 billion from the contributions of its 1.5 million members, ordinary government employees find it very hard to apply for loans or draw benefits. Worse, Garcia ordered an increase in compulsory salary deductions of government employees from 9% to 12% without a raise in their salaries.

Public school teachers, who comprise the biggest number of GSIS members, have protested in particular. The contributions of 500,000 teachers and other public school employees come to P12 billion. The GSIS, however, has been barring teachers and non-teaching personnel from getting loans, using botched records of their contributions and loan payments as an excuse.

In contrast, in November 2003, Garcia was able to acquire a P11 million housing loan in merely two days.

Garcia has chalked up P5.25 million in unliquidated cash advances in his first ten months with the GSIS. From September 2003 to July 2004, he also disbursed P6.9 million for "miscellaneous expenses."

There have been recent expos�s of Garcia's questionable use of the funds drawn from the toil of ordinary employees. For one, Garcia approved a P700 million project to computerize GSIS� operations, even as the same project could have been implemented for only P40 million.

Garcia also spends P300,000 monthly on GSIS advertisements and P200,000 monthly for his personal lawyers.

He approved a P1 billion loan to the Public Estates Authority (PEA); the purchase of land worth P611.8 million in London for the Philippine Embassy; and the purchase of expensive paintings such as Juan Luna's Parisian Life which was worth P45.4 million.

The latest irregularity involved Garcia's favoring of the Ayala-owned Union Bank as the depository of the GSIS' billions of funds. The Ayalas are known supporters of the ruling Arroyo faction.

Garcia, who belongs to one of Cebu's most powerful political clans, cannot be simply booted out by Arroyo. His family played a major role in securing a million Cebuano votes that proved decisive in clinching a dubious electoral victory for Arroyo. By maintaining Garcia in power, Arroyo is paying a debt of gratitude to the Garcias.

Arroyo likewise fears that should Garcia be ousted, he would expose the involvement of Arroyo and people close to her in questionable and anomalous transactions involving Garcia and the GSIS.

07 October 2004
English Edition

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