Oh, how wonderful it is to be a ‘national hero’
You don’t need Hubble to look for black holes in the far reaches of our known universe. There’s one at the corner of Edsa and Ortigas – a deep, dark cesspool of misery where time stops and everything that is kind and decent ceases to exist. I’m talking about the POEA.
I went there yesterday, and I died there. That edifice of pointless bureaucracy literally stole six hours of my life.
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I arrived at 10.30am. I was fully prepared to spend three hours there, having spent that much time the last time I went there to get an exit pass. For the uninitiated, OFWs like myself have to get an exit pass each time we go back to the Philippines. Without it, we won’t be able to leave the country to return to our workplaces. It is essentially the government’s way to arm-twist us into paying our dues: Pay up or you don’t get to ship out.
The first sign that I was in for a very long wait was a queue of about a thousand people snaking around the POEA’s parking lot. It was a queue simply to get an application form and a queue number. After standing in line for about 45 minutes, I was handed an application form and told to wait some more. They were calling people by batches of 200. It wasn’t after two hours when my batch was called, one full hour of that wasted as the POEA’s staff shut their windows to take their lunch breaks.
After nearly three hours, I was allowed inside the POEA’s complex. I was hopeful that things would finally move quickly, but when I reached the cavernous room where exit passes where actually being processed, my heart sank. There were twice as many people waiting there as there were outside, and the number being called was 500; I was holding 888. So, I waited for two more hours, giving me enough time to mull over everything that’s wrong about the POEA.
I wondered why, although they are perfectly aware that the number of people getting an exit pass spikes at this time of the year, those in charge of the POEA aren’t doing anything about it. Couldn’t they have added more staff and more processing windows? Why couldn’t they deputise satellite offices in Batangas or Cavite or anywhere else, so that those living in these places wouldn’t have to travel all the way to the POEA’s main office in the capital to get their exit pass? Why was their online service “indefinitely unavailable”?
As I waited, I noticed something so ludicrous yet also insulting for its fabrication. It was a big banner hanging from the ceiling that bragged that, with proper documentation, an OFW applying for an exit pass need not wait longer than 20 minutes. Yeah, right.
When my number came up, I was expecting the POEA evaluator to extend some courtesy. I was handing them my hard-earned money, and they had made me wait for five hours; the least they could do was feign shame. Instead, the woman with the haughty look of a school principal trying to catch a misdemeanor took her sweet time trying to find loopholes in my application.
Her: How long is your contract’s duration?
Me: Three years. It’s there in my application form.
She then poked a few keys on her keyboard, looked up and down my application form through her spectacles, looked at her monitor, tapped a few keys on her keyboard, looked up and down my application form.
Her: It says here you went there through this Anghwa agency.
Me: I never indicated that anywhere. I didn’t go through any agency. I’m a direct hire.
Long pause.
Her: You didn’t go through Anghwa?
Me: No.
Her: Anghwa?
Me: No. I’m a direct hire.
She then poked a few keys on her keyboard, looked up and down my application form through her spectacles, looked at her monitor, tapped a few keys on her keyboard, looked up and down my application form.
Her: How long is your contract’s duration?
Me: It’s there in my application form. Three years.
Her: Hmmmm… Singdollars…
Me: Uuuuhhhh…
Long pause.
Me: Can I get a multiple exit visa? I indicated that in my request form over there.
Her: Uuuuhhh, multiple exit visa…
Having found nothing wrong with my application form, she released me to another window where my contributions were verified, and then I was instructed to head to the cashier. This was the last leg, but it wasn’t the shortest one. With only four windows open, the cashier had a queue longer than the one I came across at the parking lot. It was a final stretch that took a full hour to negotiate.
When I finally got to the cashier, I handed in my money I had hoped would go to nation-building and economic progress for my countrymen, and then reminded the man in the window that I was requesting for a multiple exit visa, so I wouldn’t have to go through another six-hour ordeal for at least a year. Without even looking at me, he said: This is for a single exit visa. You’ll have to queue again for a multiple exit visa.
Right there and then, I imagined myself chaining all exits to that place, whipping out an assault rifle and some grenades and just basically cleaning the place up of cretins that masquerade as civil servants whose convenient excuse for bad service is that they’re not paid well enough to be efficient and creative. But that was just my imagination running wild.
I had planned on getting a massage after going through the POEA’s gauntlet, but I had already run out of time for that. Instead, after two months staying off the damned thing, I lit a cigarette. I then checked the time: 4.30pm. Oh, how wonderful it is to be a national hero!
go to the Philippine Embassy in Singapore next time… 5-10minutes, no MUCH questions asked.. hehe
i did go to the philippine embassy in singapore, but the queues there were also very long, and the staff set a daily quota, so if you had gone there after 10pm, chances were you’d be turned back and be told to come earlier the following day. still, if i had known what i’d go through at the poea’s head office, tiniyaga ko na.