ARMM teachers now free from troubles with GSIS

COTABATO CITY --- Teachers in Moro provinces are now recovering from troubles caused by the embezzlement of their monthly premiums to the Government Service Insurance System.More than P100 million worth of premiums deducted from salaries of teachers in the Department of Education-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in years prior to 2011 mysteriously failed to reach the GSIS, causing them serious constraints.John Magno, incumbent regional secretary of ARMM, said on Saturday that the GSIS awarded his office last Friday a special citation for efficiency in collection of loan repayments from teachers in recent months.The GSIS has restored the grant of loans to teachers after DepEd-ARMM repaid the premium arrears of its employees that ballooned from 2000 to 2011 due to alleged embezzlement by past officials.The GSIS suspended for so long all forms of loans by teachers in the autonomous region due to non-remittance of the monthly premiums deducted from their salaries in years preceding 2011. The GSIS commendation we got last Friday was in my name but I don’t claim credit for it. All honor and recognition goes to the employees of Dep-Ed-ARMM for their painstaking effort of resolving the problems they had with GSIS, Magno said on Saturday.The awarding rite was held in Koronadal City, the administrative capital of Region 12.Since functions of the GSIS are not devolved to the ARMM government, employees of the autonomous region in Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur transact with its office in Region 12.Personnel of ARMM agencies and support offices in the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi deals with the offices of GSIS in Zamboanga City, which is under Region 9.Magno, who assumed as regional education secretary only about three years ago, and his immediate superior, ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman, recently employed no fewer than 2,000 duly licensed teachers to replace the thousands of ghost personnel listed in the old payrolls of DepEd-ARMM.The inclusion of thousands of ghost teachers in the DepEd-ARMM payrolls proliferated during the time of past regional governors under whose tenures the department became known as the most corrupt agency in the autonomous region.Magno said ARMM teachers do not have problems now in availing loans from the GSIS as a result of their professionalization of procedures in handling their monthly insurance and welfare premiums. Our periodic remittances to GSIS are also done in the most transparent manner, open to scrutiny by media anytime, Magno said.