The Government Service Insurance System recently signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the National Statistics Office (NSO) after the pension fund revoked beginning May 1, the requirement for pensioners to renew their active status during their birth month.

Under the MOA, the GSIS will provide the NSO with an initial list of all its old-age and survivorship pensioners living in the country and a monthly report thereafter, which will serve as database for NSO.

The NSO will then match the data with its own records and submit to the pension fund, a report on who are already deceased or who have re-married, in the case of survivorship pensioners. This will then be the basis of the GSIS in labeling or tagging the status of pensioner in its database.

The following pensioners, however, need to do their Annual Renewal of Active Status (ARAS) for the last time or their pension will be discontinued — those who are suspended as of April 30 and those whose monthly pension are about to suspended due to their failure to renew their ARAS during their birth months of February, March, or April.

Pensioners living abroad, meanwhile, would still be required to renew their active status via video call or through the use of Skype, a web-based software that allows users to make telephone calls over the Internet free of charge.

“This initiative is part of the continuing efforts of the new Board to provide more responsive service to its members and pensioners,” said Robert G. Vergara, President and General Manager.

“We don’t want to impose unnecessary hardship on our more than 300,000 old-age and survivorship pensioners.”

For inquiries about the cancellation of ARAS, pensioners may call the GSIS hotline at 479. 3645 or visit the nearest GSIS office.