I have close to zero faith in the Philippine government or any of its agencies. Few, if any, of the bureaucratic functionaries who make up the cogs in this lemon of a machine actually care about serving the people in a way that is efficient and effective. Throw any little issue in that isn’t according to the daily routine etched into their brains and they will have no idea what to do. Let’s just say initiative is not common among their ranks. And that’s putting it very lightly.
So, suffice it to say, I wasn’t looking forward to renewing my passport at the consulate and I prayed that things would go smoothly. The last time I was there, it took me 8 hours just to get an Overseas Employee Certificate (which I will need every time I come back from vacation or I won’t be allowed to leave the Philippines). The hours I wasted having to deal with the Post Office, the Land Transportation Office, and the Commission on Higher Education are still fresh wounds.
Today’s experience, however, was a mixture of “pleasant surprise” and “gross underestimation”.
First of all, I had to book my “appointment” through a SERIOUSLY crappy website that looks like it was made in 1995. Even though I completed the booking in June, the earliest available appointment was in August. I was able to book one at 8:20 AM, August 11. It’s great that you can do this online, it really is. But I wish we could put more effort into making government websites that are at least decent-looking and non-buggy.
Yesterday, I told one of my coworkers that I was planning to get to the Consulate by 7:30 so I would be early for my appointment. Then she told me that that would be too late. Apparently the “appointment” is only a suggested time, so people would need to line up at 6 AM to avoid being stuck there for hours.
This morning, I dragged myself out of bed at 4:30 AM and, because the train isn’t open yet at that time and the buses are few and far between, I took a long, expensive taxi ride (55 dirhams, around 660 pesos). I arrived a few minutes before 6 AM and was happy to find that I was first in line.
There were about 10 other women there ahead of me, but they said that they didn’t have appointments since they didn’t have Internet access. Basically, they were there before the crack of freaking dawn just to line up…to get an appointment!…ON ANOTHER DAY! Unbelievable. Isn’t there a better way to do this?
Pretty soon, five lines formed outside the gate. I was at the head of the line for renewals between 8-9 AM (basically each hour would be treated as one batch of passports) and a British man in shorts and flip-flops was at the head of the one for extensions. He was there to extend the visa of his house maid. I thought that was pretty cool of him to do that and he patiently waited in the summer heat along with the rest of us, listening to music on his iPad. All this time, the guard kept coming in and out, talking to people, checking on the lines, etc.
For 2 sweaty hours we all stood there, shifting our weight from one foot to another, fanning our faces with our documents, chattering in a way that is so distinctly Filipino. The girl who was at the head of another line asked if I had downloaded the renewal form, and when I said no, she kindly gave me her extra one, which I filled out while we waited.
The waiting was made more bearable by one very extroverted woman who kept making everyone laugh with her quirky anecdotes and sharp comments. She was a middle-aged domestic helper who has been living in the Middle East for decades and speaks Arabic fluently. She kept teasing one of the Arabic guards, who was very good-natured and friendly. I really admired her plucky spirit and wit; it made me feel bad about how so many Filipinos use the word “yaya” or “maid” as an insult to someone’s looks, brains and abilities. I think they are the ignorant ones.
At about 7:30, the Consulate employees began to arrive. Alighting from their private car lifts, they walked through the gates with their Starbucks cups and bags of McDonald’s breakfasts. One of them saw a pregnant woman in line and told one of the guards to let her in to take a seat. Another woman with a little girl was let in as well. An Emirati couple (the man was wearing a traditional dishdasha, keffiyeh and sandals, the woman in an abaya, sheila and sandals) arrived, also to extend the visa of their house maid. They were ushered in to the air-conditioned building, too.
Finally, at 8 AM sharp (suprise!), the guard who had earlier come out to us to let the pregnant woman in told us to start filing in. However, glancing down at the British man’s feet, he held up his hand, said “Sorry, Sir, no slipper inside”, then waved the rest of the line in.
Stunned, the man said “I’m sorry, what???” and the guard repeated his statement. The Brit started to protest: “I’ve been waiting here since 6 o’clock! I’ve been standing here for two hours! And nobody told me! You mean to say I have to come back and do this another day?” The guard just flippantly said “Sorry, Sir, it’s the policy.” Honestly, I was really impressed at how the Brit kept his cool and was still very respectful because I think if I had been in his place I would have been screaming bloody murder. He just calmly said “Please, could I speak to somebody in charge? Look at all those women going in, they’re wearing flip-flops too!” The guard thought for a moment, then said “No sandals for men only”. I said “But you let that Arabic guy in wearing sandals!” The guard ignored me and motioned for me to hurry up and go in. I wanted to stay and fight but was getting anxious about holding up the entire line so I reluctantly walked away from the sound of the poor guy still voicing his protest and several women chiming in: Kawawa naman! Kaninang madaling-araw pa yan nandito! Maawa naman kayo. I also heard the guard telling another girl that she couldn’t come in because she was wearing a sleeveless top (I turned to look, and she was wearing a very decent, loose office top with a collar).
Going in, I really wondered why it was such a big deal to wear “appropriate attire” anyway when the Consulate is this old, dingy building with tacky plastic chairs and flimsy room dividers.
Once inside, the line completely disappeared when we were all told to put our passports in a box labeled “8 – 9 AM appointments only”, with no order whatsoever. Mine was lost somewhere in the middle. The order in which they took the passports out of the box was the order in which they would process them. So much for being at the head of the line! Some of the people who had 9-10 AM appointments even put theirs in. Since they didn’t bother to check the appointment schedules, there was no way to tell anyway.
One of the employees there was this snide man who gave instructions only in Tagalog. He would answer any question very loudly and make anyone who asked, feel like they were idiots. Pretty soon, people stopped asking him and started whispering their concerns to each other instead. Ano to? Dito po ba ang pila ng renewal o extension? Saan po ba ang pa-photocopy? Since we were all pretty clueless, it was a mess.
Finally after some time, my name was called out. I gave my completed renewal form to the woman at the desk. She took one look, pushed my form back to me and said “Get a form outside”. I was confused, so I asked if I had the wrong form. She said it was just printed out from my home and that I had to get a “proper one” from the guard outside.
With smoke coming out of my nostrils, I stomped outside where the guard from before waved me to an unlabeled box of forms. A sign saying “Pick up your forms here!” would have been nice. Better yet, they could have passed the forms out to the people waiting in line since we didn’t have anything to do for 2 hours!
So I went back in and quickly filled up the exact same form while leaning against a wall. At least the woman didn’t make me go and put my passport in the box again. When I went up to her, she checked it right away and was pretty quick about it. She gave me an invoice, my old passport and form, then told me to go to the next room.
After that, it was surprisingly smooth. I finished paying the cashier in less than 2 minutes (even though it broke my heart to pay 240 dirhams – almost 3000 pesos). After that, I went into another room for encoding (they’re finally transferring everyone’s passports to an electronic database with finger-printing so that’s great). It was another dingy room with plastic chairs but I didn’t have to wait long, maybe about 3 minutes.
The guy at the encoding cubicle was nice and professional. He typed sufficiently fast for a guy his age (heh) and corrected all the mistakes he made, unlike the LTO encoder who, in 2001, made a typing error that refuses to be corrected and gives me grief until this day. If I die today and the only means of identification is my driver’s license, let it be known that I am 29, not 39, and that if they try to find my parents in Tisa rather than Talamban, they will be searching forever. But I digress.
After my information was typed up, I had to smile for the camera. Below it, a sign in Tagalog instructed everyone to remove all visible piercings, tuck hair behind the ears (unless wearing a sheila), to wear “decent attire”, and to smile without showing any teeth. I really wasn’t in a smiley mood anyway so that wasn’t a huge problem. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be showing a sweaty, constipated passport picture to airport workers for the next 5 years.
It seemed to be going well until a slight hitch with the printer which, I believe, was a relic from a lost civilization of the Information Age. After a few minutes of pulling out and pushing back the paper tray, he finally told me to get my printout from another cubicle. Thankfully, the encoding had been successful so it was just a quick trip to the next cube, after which I returned with my printout, and that was that! I was done by 9 AM.
All in all it was an okay experience for myself since it went relatively fast, as far as government transactions go, but the whole picture: needless and redundant queuing up, inefficient system, ridiculous and useless rules, wasting time with vague instructions and a few unhelpful employees, is a very small reminder of why the Philippines continues to be mediocre as a “developing” nation. We still function under the belief that we must not ever think outside the box, we mustn’t rock the boat, we mustn’t question authority, and we must never think of how things could be done better. Because routine, familiarity and tradition are given priority over initiative and innovation. Because the voices of the authorities drown out the voices of the people.
Even here, 4000 miles away from home, we still feel its effects. Our Philippine passports weigh us down no matter where we go.
I love my country and its people dearly. But I really and truly hate the way it is governed.
As I was leaving, I looked into the room where the snide employee was sitting at the counter. Before walking through the turnstile, I pondered the irony of his scowl above the beaming, colorful words written on the front:
“It’s more fun in the Philippines.”
