GSIS says another employee positive of COVID-19

The pension fund chief has ordered a temporary lockdown on all GSIS branches across the country and asked their employees to work from home. (File photo by Tubanismo/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) has confirmed another employee has tested positive for the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), resulting to a number of two COVID-19 cases in the state pension fund.

GSIS President and General Manager Rolando Ledesma Macasaet said in a statement that the second patient in the GSIS main office is a male employee confined in Las Piñas General Hospital.

“We are currently in the process of ‘contact tracing’ and notifying the persons whom these two employees have had close contact with to self-quarantine,” Macasaet said.

The pension fund chief has ordered a temporary lockdown on all GSIS branches across the country and asked their employees to work from home.

“We do not want to expose our members and employees to any unnecessary risk, most especially our elderly pensioners who are the ones highly vulnerable to the COVID-19 virus,” he said.

On Monday, a female employee from GSIS tested positive for COVID-19. The patient has a travel history to Japan and is confined in San Juan De Dios Hospital.

Macasaet assured the pensioners that the pension fund will still accept loan applications through the GSIS Wireless Automated Processing System (GWAPS) kiosks, and the GSIS will still continue to operate as their employees will be working from home.

“We also would like to assure our pensioners that they would receive their pensions on time. Huwag po kayo mag-alala (Please do not worry),” the GSIS chief stressed.

On the official GSIS Facebook page, a public advisory has been posted by the management announcing the temporary suspension of some services of the pension fund.

The suspended services include: Filing and processing of retirement/separation benefit claims; Filing and processing of non-life insurance claims; Filing and processing of GSIS Financial Assistance Loan (GFAL) applications; GFAL program extended to 30 September 2020; and releasing of GSIS UMID eCards.

According to Macasaet, “GSIS is also granting a one-month grace period on all premium remittances, loan payments, housing loan amortizations and rentals of GSIS real properties.”

As of writing, the Philippines has recorded a total of 202 cases of the novel coronavirus disease with 17 deaths and seven recoveries.