An organization of education workers urged the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) to cancel the “questionable and unjust” accrued interests on loans for the months of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in 2020.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), in a statement issued Tuesday, April 27, revealed that it has been receiving “persisting complaints from public school teachers and employees” regarding interests on loans which GSIS allegedly started charging members after the ECQ was lifted.
“The teachers were surprised that after the moratorium on debt repayment during the ECQ, they were suddenly charged interest on the loan for the months of April, May, and June in 2020,” ACT Secretary General Raymond Basilio said in Filipino.
This, he added, is a “big cut in their salary” in the midst of the pandemic. “This is not fair because their debt has been extended by three months and they will also pay interest on the three-month extension,” Basilio said.
Basilio called on the GSIS leadership to heed their request for a dialogue and face public school teachers who complain about the collection of accrued interests.
ACT said that GSIS is yet to respond to its letter dated April 19 which outline its arguments for its call to cancel accrued interests and asking for a dialogue.
The group also wrote a similar letter to the Bangko Sentral of Pilipinas last July 2020, asking for a halt in the collection of accrued interests as it “violates” the Bayanihan Law 1.
“The collection of accrued interest is against Republic Act No. 11469 or ‘Bayanihan to Heal as One Law’, which explicitly provided for the implementation of a grace period for payment of loans during the ECQ months without incurring interests, penalties or other charges,” Basilio explained.
Basilio furthered that the charging of accrued interests was “unfair and counter-intuitive as it defeats the purpose of bringing relief to borrowers who were suffering enough under the pandemic and the economic crisis.”
For ACT, the collection of accrued interest only made the “burdens of teachers heavier” as it coincided with the higher expenses of teachers for the implementation of distance learning.
ACT said it was one of the first groups to call for a moratorium on loan payments amid the lockdown in March 2020 to provide immediate relief to borrowers who struggle with decreased incomes and higher prices of goods as the health and economic crisis worsened.