State pension fund Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) emerged as one of the top five most trusted government agencies in the 2021 Philippine Trust Index (PTI), a proprietary biennial research conducted by communications firm EON Group.
“Napakalaking karangalan ang mapabilang sa mga pinagkakatiwalaang ahensya ng gobyerno. Ito ay patunay na kinikilala ng aming mga miyembro at pensiyonado ang aming dedikasyon at pagsisikap,” GSIS President and General Manager Rolando Ledesma Macasaet said.
Aside from GSIS which obtained an 87% trust rating, the other government agencies in the top five are the Department of Education (91%); Pag-IBIG Fund (89%); Department of Social Welfare and Development (88%); and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (87%). According to the report, “in terms of government agencies, departments that got the highest trust are those whose functions require them to remain engaged with the public, even during the pandemic such as online learning, finance regulation, loan assistance and aid distribution.”
“We, in GSIS, recognized the magnitude of the impact of COVID-19 early on. So we knew that we had to take timely actions to mitigate its effects on our stakeholders. We are honored and grateful to reap the fruits of our hard work,” Macasaet added.
PTI covers the trust landscape across different sectors, such as the academe, business, church, government, media, and non-government organizations.
In its efforts to provide for the financial needs of its members and pensioners amid the crisis, the pension fund implemented a contactless filing of loans and claims; opened an emergency loan window with increased credit limit and relaxed eligibility terms; credited pensions ahead of the regular monthly schedule; made the yearly appearance requirement for pensioners available online; offered a six-month moratorium on loan payments; carried out a program granting a half-million peso insurance benefit to the families of medical frontliners who succumbed to COVID-19; and employed strict social distancing and biosecurity measures in its offices nationwide.
For these efforts, GSIS has earned recognition from global and national organizations.
In September 2020, it was cited by the 2020 Stevie International Business Awards for having the “Most Valuable Government Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic” in the world. Besting entries from the United States and Australia, GSIS was the only government agency to win the Gold Stevie award in this category. The following month, GSIS was named as one of the finalists in the Asia CEO Circle of Excellence Awards.
In the first quarter of this year, GSIS likewise received a Silver Anvil and three Quill awards for its COVID-19 related communication initiatives. This month, it also won the ASEAN Social Security Association (ASSA) Strategic Communication Recognition Award for its integrated communication programs amid the pandemic.
The pension fund has also maintained its International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001:2015 certification for seven of its processes and obtained certifications for two new processes. The ISO certification affirms that GSIS’s systems and processes meet global standards.
