Insurance Commissioner Emmanuel F. Dooc said on Friday that the Philippine Public School Teachers Association (PPSTA), a mutual benefit association placed under the commission’s financial-rehabilitation program, has regained financial health and finally posted positive equity as of July 31.
“Last July 31 it posted a positive equity of P21 million. Not much, but we have cured the deficiency. It’s one example of a successful rehabilitation of a company,” Dooc said.
The rehabilitation of PPSTA started in 2006, when the Insurance Commission (IC) took over its operations to bring it back from financial ruin.
Dooc said the capital deficiency compelling the IC to place the PPSTA under a conservatorship some seven years earlier successfully restored and wiped out capital deficiency as wide as P1.8 billion.
Dooc said that with the positive equity posted by PPSTA, the teacher-benefit organization should soon be on its way back to normal operation, although the IC will continue to have effective control of management for possibly a few more months.
“Teachers rely a lot on that association for loans and insurance protection. Now, I’m happy that it will be back to normal operations. But we are still going to stay there until we are sure that the new management is in very capable hands,” Dooc said.
He said the next challenge for PPSTA would be to increase its membership that has dropped to only 200,000 the past seven years because of the questions raised against PPSTA’s liquidity and financial viability.
“There’s still an advantage because, although the number of members dropped significantly, there is still that core number.
“We have about 200,000 members, and that’s significant because their dues, contributions, their loan repayments are all made through salary deductions,” Dooc said.
“Now we are campaigning for more membership. We are trying to recover more members which were lost in favor of some private companies,” he said.