THE Bacolod City Council approved a resolution urging the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) to allow elected councilors to continue remitting voluntarily their premium/contributions after completing three consecutive terms of office.
The resolution was authored by Councilor Renecito Novero, City Council majority floor leader.
Novero said that Sections 11-13 of Republic Act (RA) 8291 mandate that benefits shall be payable to GSIS members who have rendered at least 15 years of service. Section 43 (a) (b) of RA 7160 or the Local Government Code of 1991 provides that the term of all local elective officials elected after the effectivity of this shall be three years, and no local elected officials shall serve for more than three year consecutive terms in the same position.
He said this aforementioned provision of law limits the term of election local officials to only three consecutive terms and this necessary fall short of the minimum 15-year service required under Sections 11-13 of RA 8291 and will consequently disqualify councilors who have served only three consecutive terms from availing of the GSIS benefits.
He added it will do more good than bad and accord more help than harm to allow councilors who have continuously served three consecutive terms to voluntarily continue remitting their premiums/contributions to the GSIS until they shall have completed the 15 years minimum requirement to qualify for the monthly pension granted to retired government employees under the GSIS law.
Novero noted that the Philippine Councilors League (PCL) has already initiated this advocacy years ago and had, through its Advocacy Committee, submitted to Congress this proposal upon which the House Committee on Government Enterprises and Privatization chaired by Congressman Jesus Sacdalan conducted Technical Working Group (TWG) Meeting chaired by Congressman Antonio Tinio on September 2, 2015.
Novero said the PCL consisting of at least 17,000 members across the country, through the PCL National Executive Officers and National Board in their joint meeting on January 17, 2020 in Pasay City reverberated this advocacy.