In Laroco v. Government Service Insurance System Committee on Claims (G.R. No. 267620, February 24, 2026), the Supreme Court declared Section 24.2.2 of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the GSIS Act ultra vires — void for exceeding the GSIS's rule-making power — because it denied survivorship benefits to secondary beneficiaries (such as a deceased employee's parents) unless the employee had at least 15 years of government service, when the law itself requires only three years.
Related: Intestate Succession in the Philippines: Who Inherits When There Is No Will.
What the Court Actually Held
The case was brought by Petronilo B. Laroco, the father of Cristie C. Laroco, a public school teacher who died single and without children after 13 years of government service and 12 years of paid GSIS premiums. As her sole heir, Petronilo applied to the GSIS for survivorship benefits. The GSIS denied the claim, citing Section 24.2.2 of the Revised Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of Republic Act No. 8291, the GSIS Act of 1997 — a rule under which secondary beneficiaries (a deceased member's dependent parents, or in their absence, legitimate descendants) could receive survivorship benefits only if the member had rendered at least 15 years of government service. Since Cristie had 13 years, the GSIS ruled that only primary beneficiaries (a spouse or children) could claim, and Cristie had neither.
The Court of Appeals upheld the denial. The Supreme Court's Third Division, in a Decision penned by Associate Justice Henri Jean Paul B. Inting, reversed. It held that Section 21(c) of the GSIS Act itself — the actual statute, not the implementing rule — entitles secondary beneficiaries to survivorship benefits where (1) there is no primary beneficiary, (2) the secondary beneficiary meets the law's dependency requirements, (3) the member was in government service at the time of death, and (4) the member had rendered at least three years of service. The GSIS's own implementing rule added a 15-year threshold nowhere found in the statute:
"However noble the intentions of GSIS may be, it simply cannot defeat or impair the relevant provisions of Republic Act No. 8291 through a mere administrative issuance. By promulgating Section 24.2.2 of the Revised IRR of Republic Act No. 8291, the GSIS effectively usurped the legislative power that is exclusively vested in the Congress."
The Court explained that an implementing agency's rule-making power is a delegated legislative power — it can fill in the details of a law, but it cannot narrow or rewrite the law's own terms. The GSIS had argued its rule was meant to be fair, since regular retirement pensions already require 15 years of service; requiring only 3 years for survivorship benefits, GSIS said, created an unequal result. The Court was not persuaded: the statute itself already treats survivorship benefits differently from retirement pensions (survivorship pay is a smaller, pro-rated cash amount, not a full pension), and if GSIS genuinely believed the law needed to change, its remedy was to ask Congress — not to rewrite the law by regulation. The Court also invoked the settled principle that social security laws must be liberally construed in favor of employees and their beneficiaries, and that accrued survivorship benefits are a vested property right protected by the Due Process Clause, citing GSIS v. Montesclaros.
Because Cristie died with no spouse or children, and the record did not establish whether Petronilo met all the specific dependency conditions for a secondary beneficiary, the Court resolved the case on a narrower but still favorable ground: since Cristie had no secondary beneficiaries meeting every technical requirement either, the law itself provides that in that situation, survivorship benefits pass to the member's legal heirs — and Petronilo, as Cristie's sole legal heir, qualified on that basis. The case was remanded to the GSIS Committee on Claims to compute the benefit due.
What Changed, and What Didn't
The GSIS Act's own three-year minimum service requirement for survivorship benefits is not new; it has been in the statute since 1997. What changed is that the specific GSIS implementing rule imposing a stricter 15-year threshold on secondary beneficiaries has now been judicially declared void and unenforceable, to the extent it conflicts with the law. Any GSIS decision denying a secondary beneficiary's survivorship claim solely because the deceased member had between 3 and 14 years of service can no longer stand on that ground.
Who This Affects
This matters for the parents, and in some cases the siblings' children (as legitimate descendants), of government employees — teachers, nurses, LGU staff, and other civil servants — who die relatively early in their careers, before reaching 15 years of service, and who leave no spouse or children. Under the now-voided rule, GSIS had been denying these families any survivorship benefit at all. Families in that position, including those who were previously denied and may still be within the period to challenge that denial, now have clear Supreme Court authority to press the claim. It is also relevant more broadly to how families of any deceased government worker should evaluate a GSIS benefits denial: an implementing rule that adds a requirement not found in the enabling statute is a live ground for challenge, not just in this specific survivorship-benefits context.
What It Means in Practice
- A GSIS member's secondary beneficiaries (dependent parents, or legitimate descendants in their absence) are entitled to survivorship benefits once the member has rendered at least three years of government service — not fifteen.
- Where there are no primary or secondary beneficiaries meeting every technical requirement, the benefit passes to the member's legal heirs under intestate succession principles.
- A prior GSIS denial based solely on the 15-year requirement in Section 24.2.2 of the IRR is now vulnerable to challenge; families who were denied on that basis should have the denial reviewed.
- More generally, a GSIS (or any agency) implementing rule that imposes a requirement beyond what the enabling statute itself states is void as ultra vires and cannot be enforced to that extent.
This commentary is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For guidance specific to your situation, please consult a licensed attorney.
If your family has been denied GSIS survivorship benefits, or you are unsure whether you qualify as a beneficiary or heir of a deceased government employee, our firm is available to help. You may reach us via Viber or WhatsApp, call us at 0995 433 5550, or send an email to vivasnobles@gmail.com.