SENATOR Risa Hontiveros continues to stand out as a fearless champion of accountability. From exposing the murky identity of former Bamban mayor Alice Guo to her latest dissection of the Government Service Insurance System’s reckless investments, Hontiveros has once again proven that public servants should serve—not prey on—the public.
Hontiveros was instrumental in unveiling the duplicity of Alice Guo, who once paraded herself as a humble farmer’s daughter and first-time public servant, but now confirmed as a Chinese national who infiltrated local government by masquerading as a Filipino mayor. Hontiveros’s expose didn’t stop at the fraud itself. She drew national attention to how Guo’s meteoric political rise was backed by dubious financing, shady property deals, human trafficking, and deep ties to Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators. These revelations blew the lid off a network of money laundering schemes funneling billions into and out of the country.
When others hesitated to confront the political and diplomatic fallout, Hontiveros pressed on—holding hearings, presenting evidence, and demanding cooperation from law enforcement and the intelligence community. She warned that Guo’s case was not an isolated incident but part of a larger pattern of foreign infiltration exploiting our electoral system, real estate loopholes, and weak regulatory oversight. By forcing the issue into the public spotlight, she made it impossible for the government to sweep the matter under the rug, paving the way for multiple criminal and administrative investigations now underway.
Now, it’s the GSIS under the senator’s crosshairs. During a privilege speech on August 6, Hontiveros revealed that GSIS invested over ₱1 billion in DigiPlus, an online gambling platform. This is a baffling and morally tone-deaf move given government employees are prohibited from gambling themselves. The shares were bought at ₱65.30 but are now trading below ₱13.68. Meanwhile, GSIS’s serious infractions in other investments, such as in Alternergy, Del Monte Pacific, even risky Nickel Asia moves, have resulted in hundreds of millions in losses and have potentially endangered the pension fund’s solvency.
What’s worse? GSIS has not distributed dividends since 2020. Public servants, who sacrificed portions of their earnings in good faith, are getting less than peanuts in return. A coworker once received around ₱700 annually but in 2019, that shrank to just ₱50. That’s not a pandemic excuse; that’s betrayal.
Hontiveros is asking the right question: Why gamble with public pensions? I add another: Why withhold dividends without explanation? As the guardian of government workers’ hard-earned savings, the GSIS must operate with transparency and accountability—not speculation and secrecy.
I stand with Senator Hontiveros in urging Congress to revisit the GSIS Act to guarantee that the very agency entrusted with our retirement will never treat our financial security like chips on an Okada gaming table.
