After the unfortunate experience of learning how the Land Transportation Office (LTO) operates for the average civilian, am currently in the middle of handling government documentation required for work. Despite being previously employed at different places in the United States, where entitlements like social security and employer-linked healthcare came with the position, the process in the Philippines is truly like none other – told a friend in the US how “impressive” it is, as in, not even being able to imagine a bureaucratic process so tortuous.

Before moving to Bacolod City, had previously been employed as a newspaper correspondent, library assistant, phone bank attendant, front desk representative, waiter, and financial aid counselor. In every one of those positions, the only document required after being hired was a social security number and a government-issued ID. Once those two documents were completed, the company managed to organize social security contributions, pension contributions, 401K contributions, tax information, healthcare and dental care arrangements, among other benefits.

Today, there are literally 10 items on the to-do list, including documents requiring visits to multiple government agencies, which, as a friend pointed out, “Government offices in all countries are slow.”

After being given about a week and a half to gather everything, found one of the documents required a three-day waiting period for processing, while another would not be completed until mid-April. As pointed out in the prior LTO column, where a driver’s license took three days to acquire, as compared to the US, where it could take (at most) a couple hours; this latest interaction with government agencies shows the pattern is universal across all offices associated with the national government.

At one office, was assigned a number, which included a time stamp. At the same time, picked up a number from a neighboring booth for another agency; the number waiting for the latter was much higher than the first. However, after a couple hours, was served by the second agency first. Based on the time stamp, I arrived at 11:45 a.m.; checking my phone on the way out, the transaction was finally completed at 3:00 p.m. – for one agency. In that span of just over three hours, the office in question served around 20 people – not very efficient.

While the concept of establishing satellite offices was intended to provide convenient service (cannot even imagine how much more a nightmare the original system must have been), was the product supposed to be merely a marginal improvement, instead of a truly proficient process? It has been exhibited, on multiple occasions, how many in elected office and other government entities boast about “innovations” that turn out to just be bluster. Such is the case with the multitude of ordinances passed and publicized that, in the end, are never enforced (or enforced for the first couple days for publicity, forgotten, and rehashed when some unfortunate incident occurs).

It is hard to determine if this obsession with just putting on a façade is truly satisfactory for city residents or if there is a belief that this is “just how things are” and there is no other way around it. Some will say “there are too many people to service” or “there aren’t enough government workers,” but it does not make any sense how a country like the United States, which has three times the population and much larger in area than the Philippines, can accomplish with two readily-available documents what one in the Philippines is required to waste days at a time waiting around for government workers to stamp pieces of paper.

No exaggerating, the initial encounter with the system was enough to bring forth thoughts of quitting right there and moving back to the United States. With the everyday stress all people regularly experience, having to literally scrape together documentation on every aspect of one’s life in a matter of a few days was just too much.

At this point, the impulse has subsided (a bit), but it does keep one on the edge, especially if another similar encounter arises./WDJ