Yes, There Is Hope for the Philippines.
The GSIS Restores the Faith of Filipinos in the System
By Bobby M. Reyes
Founder, Media Breakfast Club of Los Angeles (mediabcla@aol.com)
Dateline Los Angeles, California, March 3, 2007
Remember that old Overseas-Filipino joke, which said that while Americans had Bob Hope, Filipinos had
hopelessness?
In a 2003 essay, I wrote about "The Filipino Psyche." I said, "Obviously, the first step is to regain the dignity
of the Filipino because one cannot reinvent one's psyche if he feels ashamed of the home country and has
no faith in her people and its leaders. Remember the adage that says, 'He who loses money, loses much;
he who loses a friend, loses much more; but he who loses faith, loses all.'?"
I have written so many times before that I had never lost hope for, and in, the Philippines. I said that the
best is still to come in the homeland. When I was elected chairman of the 2006 Kalayaan Philippine
Independence Steering Committee for Los Angeles, I said that our mission statement was "to make
Filipinos look good, feel good and proud of their multiethnic heritage."
Last night, a motley crowd of Filipino-American media practitioners and community leaders had a pleasant
surprise in a Korean-owned hotel at Mid-Wilshire District of Los Angeles. Yes, people present felt that
insofar as the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) is concerned, perhaps the best has come.
The occasion was actually a press conference and the launching for Los Angeles of the so-called "GSIS
Wireless Automated Processing System," or the GW@PS, as Atty. Winston F. Garcia, the GSIS head
honcho used as an acronym.
Atty. Garcia, the GSIS president and general manager, spoke of how he and his team revolutionized the
service to the GSIS members and pensioners. He said that the GW@PS system has made it possible to
deliver fast and efficient service in a secure environment while saving annually a billion pesos, as the cost
of cutting checks and mailing expenses are virtually (pun intended) eliminated. The GW@PS system
integrates four state-of-the-art technologies: the radio-frequency identification (RFID), biometrics,
wireless-telephone technology and the Virtual Private Network (VPN) online system. Biometrics is the
system of establishing identification through an individual's fingerprint and other unique physical qualities
or attributes. And the beautiful thing is that the GW@PS software and hardware are all designed and made
by Filipino technocrats. There was no need even to use a foreign consultant in creating and perfecting the
system.
To learn more about the GSIS and the GW@PS, please visit www.gsis.gov.ph.
The GSIS team demonstrated a working model of the GW@PS kiosk (euphemism for a computer station)
that members can use to obtain an e-card that contains a chip, which stores the member or pensioner
personal data and basic records. The GSIS vice president for technology, Ed Ocampo, demonstrated to the
audience how to use the kiosk, which would be installed at the Philippine Consulate General (PCG) in Los
Angeles.
The PCG's Acting Head of Post, Consul Ma. Hellen Barber, introduced Atty. Garcia to the crowd. At 51, he
continues to be a visionary leader after having turned the GSIS' 25-billion peso deficit (that he inherited
when he became its boss) into a surplus. He comes from the very-prominent Garcia family of Cebu
Province and his kin have had successful political careers. Now the GSIS pension fund has reached
420-billion pesos and it earned a net income last year of more-than 40-billion pesos.
At the question-and-answer portion of the program, this writer was first to ask. Antonio V. Nebrida, Jr., a
news reporter of the National Broadcasting Network, and Atty. Estrella C. Elamparo, the GSIS chief legal
counsel, emceed the program. I asked Mr. Nebrida if the GW@PS system could be sold to the Philippine
Commission on Elections (COMELEC) and the Department of Education, Sports and Culture (DECS)? It
was Mr. Garcia who answered. He said that he actually offered the system and the e-card to the National
Committee of a Unified Identification Card as a common ID that would serve at the same time as a driver's
license, a passport, a voter's ID and even as an ATM card. And he said that the GSIS could issue everybody
the said e-card without billing the national government. But he said that the said committee members did
not bother to discuss even his proposal.
The DECS could solve its perennial delay in sending payroll checks to its teachers from Aparri (Cagayan)
to Jolo (Sulu) by simply depositing directly into the GSIS accounts of all its employees. Why can the DECS
not do this simply online transaction and make use of the GW@PS and the GSIS e-card? It has been
reported that public-school teachers are forced to borrow from loan sharks while they wait for their payroll
checks to arrive at their far-flung assignments.
Yes, last night the visitors from the GSIS made Filipinos look good, feel good and proud of their homeland.
And yes, from the looks of it, more good things are yet to come. # # #
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