THE many complaints against inefficient and substandard services allegedly employed by the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) have caught the attention of Iloilo City Representative Raul Gonzalez Jr.

Gonzalez said he is open to the idea of opening up a market for other government insurance players, particularly for the more than half a million public school teachers "to break away" from GSIS and form their own insurance group.

Gonzalez recently sent a letter to Iloilo City Councilor Erwin Plagata to acknowledge receipt of City Council Resolution 2009-1385 requesting for a congressional investigation on the delays in the remittance of regular monthly pensions of all government retires and employees under the GSIS.

He said that he had already filed House Resolution 1049 last March 2009 entitled "Resolution requesting the House of Representatives to conduct an inquiry, in aid of legislation, into the on-going computerization program of GSIS and the purported 'glitch' in the system which has resulted in the deterioration of the quality service to its members."

He said the House committee on government enterprises and privatization chaired by Camarines Sur Representative Felix Alfelor Jr. conducted several hearings and will issue shortly its committee report on the GSIS fiasco.

GSIS has tapped IBM Philippines to establish its computerization program, which had suffered glitches for several months already.

Both GSIS and IBM assured the government employees to solve the computer problem by December 2009 to January 2010.

Gonzalez assured that he is willing to help the public school teachers who comprise 30 percent of all government employees in the country, and also, the military soldiers and policemen who want to break away from the coverage of GSIS. (Lydia C. Pendon)