ten ₱esos

Reportedly Pat went to Mangga this morning to consult with his previous teacher or get a document. He was supposed to meet me and his brother Mack here in the flat afterward. We would go to town together to meet requirements for registering Pat as a high school freshman. We waited a long time for him, did not get a phone call nor text from him, so I decided that Mack and I should leave without him to go do errands in the city.

I dropped off my laundry and Dominic’s at a cleaner to be washed, dried and folded. We have a week’s worth of dirty or damp clothing. At home I could drop it into a weak, Asian washer without an agitator then later hang clothes and towels on wire lines at the basement patio. But in this foggy and rainy weather, the laundry wouldn’t dry. And here’s no electric dryer. So I’ve taken a load to a cleaner for the first time so that I can retrieve clean, dry clothes and towels tomorrow.

Then Mack and I rode up toward the post office, where I looked into my box then mailed an envelope to the Salaverias and a postcard to the Fairlies. We dodged cars and jeepneys coasting downhill through a crosswalk and walked to a Mercury Drug store to buy something for Mack’s headache and nausea. The jeepney and taxi smog adversely affects both of us.

Then we walked upstairs to the Metrobank branch in the Porta Vaga building to attempt to pay for Mack’s National Statistics Office birth certificate request. That’s where we had rushed yesterday, just before 6 p.m. closing time to try to pay. But last evening, a Metrobank teller told me that she couldn’t enter the N.S.O. reference number that I’d provided. She suggested that I must have written it incorrectly.

Last night, at home, I looked again and verified that I had transcribed correctly the birth certificate request reference number. I then wrote the batch number in case that’s what Metrobank wants to enter.

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So this morning we returned to Metrobank, as I said. I took a customer number, sat facing the three-teller counter, and I waited for my “83″ to be indicated on the lighted “now serving” sign. Only one teller was serving customers.

Apparently the electric sign is mere decoration to make the branch appear to be modern. Eventually, after a customer who came in after me was served, I found that the teller had already served 85 . I asked to pay PhP 315 for an N.S.O. birth certificate request, provided the request reference number and request batch number, then the teller told me that I must exit the branch and obtain from the security guard a blank payment request form then fill it in.

I don’t know why a teller wouldn’t have necessary blank forms for customers nor why the table in the lobby wouldn’t be stocked with necessary deposit slips, withdrawal requests and payment requests. But this is the Philippines. Protocols are different here. I should have discerned, telepathically, when the teller was willing to serve customer 83. And I should have intuited, before I entered the building, that the armed guard outside the bank has blank forms for customers.

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I hadn’t given much thought to why we ought to go to a bank branch to pay a bank PhP 315 so that it can pay N.S.O. PhP 140 for a birth certificate replica. Things are different here. Locals in Tuding pay their electricity bills at the corner store where they buy cigarettes, cooking oil and live chickens. I was willing to walk wherever necessary to pay someone so that N.S.O. might fulfill a request.

Monday afternoon, after other errands, Mack and I went to the National Statistics Office in Baguio City to see about obtaining a birth certificate. Not too many customers were milling about nor crowding the halls because we’d arrived around closing time and most people- those who’d arrived early in the morning- had been served and had departed. I think the screener told Mack that we were too late (1/2 hour from closing time) to make a new request for a document and that we could only pick up a document.

So when we had returned from the city to Monterrazas, we searched the internet for a way to apply online, and eventually we found www.Ecensus.com.ph . Mack is an Internet neophyte, so I helped him to register and to apply for a copy of his birth certificate. N.S.O.’s site is miserable – a typical bureaucratic, user-unfriendly, unintuitive website. Lousy. After logging a request for a document, we couldn’t pay for it. Three options were offered: PORT Payment Gateway, FASTNet and credit cards.

If I were “a Megalink ATM account holder,” I could have paid online using an “ATM card via The PORT Payment Gateway.” Well, that doesn’t help me.

If I were an Equitable PCI Bank account holder and ATM cardholder, I could’ve paid online via FASTNet, the internet banking facility of Equitable PCI Bank. FASTNet can be used to pay for requests to be delivered within the Philippines.

I wanted to pay online using a (Visa or MC) check card number or credit card number. But NSO accepts credit card and MC/Visa check card numbers only from people outside the Philippines! Why? Filipinos don’t have Visa, Mastercard, Discover or American Express accounts?!

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I chose one of my cards, whose issuer still has my previous US address on record. I entered my cardholder name, billing address in Florida, card number and expiration date then found that N.S.O. expects $20 from requestors outside the Philippines! That’s much more than PhP 315 ($7.41) that some Philippine bank account holders can pay online and PhP 140 ($3.29) that Filiponos who wait for hours can pay in-person downtown.

I guessed that this is why N.S.O. accepts credit cards (and Visa/MC check cards) only from people with foreign credit card billing addresses. I guess that it assumes that foreigners can afford to pay $20. Yes, I know that N.S.O. would have to pay more for postage to U.K. than to Philippines. But I also note that N.S.O. demands a nice, round 20 U.S. dollars, not a peso sum, for credit card holders from all fifty-three nations, principalities and possessions listed on the payment page.

Why doesn’t the Philippine federal government agency charge a Peso amount?

If, when this lousy eCensus website was devised by Unisys, N.S.O. wanted to charge PhP 500 for the privilege of requesting and paying online, to cover the cost of the website and even profit a bit from foreigners and expatriates and OFWs, that would be more palatable and understandable.

The Filipino government charging a modest peso amount for documents to Filipinos abroad who need them would be understandable. Charge PhP 500 and the requestors’ credit card companies will pay to N.S.O. pesos and charge -or debit- the cardholders the appropriate amount of Euros or whatever.

If a Filipino in England agrees to pay 500 pesos by credit card, his Visa card would be charged the corresponding amount of Euros. If a Filipina in U.S.A. agrees to pay PhP 500 by Mastercard, her card issuer will charge her $11.49. N.S.O. would receive only what it needs to cover costs and the customer pays only what’s necessary.

However, due to the greed of N.S.O. , for a birth, death or marriage certificate, Overseas Filipino Workers and citizens in Europe, Asia and North America must pay a nice, round 20 U.S. dollars to the Philippine government.

Why does the Filipino government ask Filipinos in Japan, Canada and elsewhere to pay U.S. dollars?

I think that N.S.O. is gouging the Overseas Filipino Workers and expatriates, like our friends in Panama City, because they can afford it. “Because they’re not in the Philippines earning 300 pesos per day but are earning ‘good money’ in England, Canada, U.S. or wherever, let’s charge them more … say, $20. They can afford it.”

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In online transactions in the United States, customers often conserve money by buying products and services via Internet websites because the online transactions typically cost the merchants less money than serving people products and services in-person!

The Republic of the Philippines National Statistics Office is not a retailer and thus should not be so greedy as to price-gouge Filipinos who are overseas when they need to request marriage certificates and birth certificates.

Dominic and I have seen shady dealings and read in newspapers and websites of somuch graft, corruption, greed, theft, kickbacks and bribes in the Philippines. Apparently ‘anything goes’ here. So many elected officials have their hands out for extras. They allow gambling, numbers games, cockfights and prostitution and allow questionable landfills and other public works contracts because they get their paid and paid and paid and paid, far more than their salaries.

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On Tuesday, Mack, I and others went to a water park in Asin, so that day we didn’t try to pay N.S.O. downtown nor pay a bank nor pay online.

Wednesday we went to N.S.O. branch in the Juniper Building on Bonifacio Street. The building didn’t have electricity, and the interior was jammed with hundreds of murmering Filipinos in the dark, crowding the stairwells and halls. Mack and I retreated and thought that we’d return another day.

So yesterday I went while Mack returned to his high school. Again I found the dirty, sooty building had no electricity. But at noon or one o’clock or whenever I was there, not so many bodies clogged the staircase and halls, so I was able to go to ‘window 3′ and ask if I could pay for an online request. I would rather pay PhP 315 in-person than pay $20 online. The nice gentlemen told me that he couldn’t.

I don’t know if he couldn’t because the offices had no electricity and the computers and cash registers were inoperative or if paying in-person for an online request wasn’t the proper procedure. He told me that I could pay at a Metrobank branch if I have the requisite birth certificate request reference number.

Of course I didn’t have Mack’s document request number, because N.S.O.’s eCensus website had not provided one nor e-mailed one to Mack’s Yahoo mail address as it was supposed to. Monday, Tuesday (in evening), Wednesday and Thursday morning we had looked in Mack’s Yahoo mail account for mail from N.S.O., but no reference number was forthcoming…

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In the U.S., when one requests a document or a service or a product via telephone or website, one gets a confirmation number immediately! Either by voice on a telephone or on a visited website or e-mailed to the customer, one receives confirmation of a purchase or an order. And customers can, then-and-there, easily pay a fair market price via credit card. But not here…

Mack and I had read that N.S.O. would process his request “in three working days.” So we expected that by Thursday we’d have received a reference number so we could pay and N.S.O. would mail a birth certificate!

But because nothing was in Mack’s mailbox, I went without an order number to N.S.O. in Baguio City, hoping that the office would have electricity, a clerk could look-up our request, note the request number, I could pay a cashier PhP 315 and N.S.O. would mail a birth certificate so that Mack can enroll in high school next week!

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Because that gentleman said that he could not receive my payment and that I’d need the request number to pay in a bank, Mark and I went home to use my computer to access the idiotic eCensus website and request again a copy of his birth certificate. We did that, we got the “request reference number,” then we phoned Metrobank branches to hear their operating hours. The Session Road branch in the Porta Vaga Building was open until 6:00. So we hastened there by jeepney and on foot to get in the door with the precious request number and PhP 315 to pay.

Alas, as I reported above, the number could not be entered into the teller’s computer or terminal. We felt that we had wasted time, effort and money in rushing back to Baguio City. Mack and I had an affordable dinner in Gobi Mongolian Grill then returned to Monterrazas Village and Baguio Gold.

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Today I returned to the same Metrobank branch after visiting the post office, with the verified request number and the batch number, hoping for success with a different teller. This morning the teller told me that the numbers were too long and asked me where I’d gotten them. I told her that they’re from N.S.O.’s eCensus website. She replied that she could only input the shorter request numbers gained by N.S.O. customers via telephone.

Telephone? I’d never heard that one could request a birth certificate from N.S.O. by telephone! I hadn’t seen on the eCensus site a telephone number for N.S.O. I asked for a Baguio City telephone directory, and saw only one phone number for the local office (that line is always busy). Talking via telephone to an N.S.O. employee to request a certificate doesn’t seem feasible. Talking to Filipinos in person here can be futile. But Mack and I walked to an internet café so that I could surf around and search for a telephone number.

I thought that this was insane. We had a long-awaited request reference number because we’d made a second request for a document. But we can’t use the number to pay the N.S.O. in its Baguio City office nor to pay a bank to relay money to N.S.O. This is idiotic. While searching, I serendipitously found that I could pay at an Equitable/P.C.I. bank branch or a Unionbank branch. So we rushed forth from the dim computer den to find one of those banks on Session Road or Harrison Road.

While crossing Session Road to the Unionbank that I saw, we nearly got creamed by a Honda Civic, as the drivers here are wantonly reckless, disrespectful, discourteous, uncivil, impatient, selfish and unsafe. Nine-tenths of them should be reeducated. Filipinos in Baguio City drive like 11-year-olds playing video games.

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In the small Union Bank branch office, I had painless experience for two minutes with friendly, courteous, staff, including an outgoing, helpful teller. I was not merely relieved to be finished with the crazy struggle for the privilege of paying 315 pesos for a Php 140 document request. The Union Bank employees were classy. Rarely have I been treated with such professionalism by retailers or the service industry in the Philippines. I would consider opening a savings account or checking account in that Union Bank office. I recommend it.

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Because we’d paid N.S.O. so late, Friday rather than Monday, we really should go to the N.S.O. office when it opens Monday and spend hours requesting a birth certificate copy at ‘window 1,’ waiting for the clerks to look for a record of Mack’s birth in a certain time and place, pay PhP 140 when called to window 2 or 3, then wait to collect the document when summoned to window 4. If we’re among the first applicants through the door at opening time, we should have a birth certificate in hand before lunch time.

Mack has to get all his ducks in a row before Wednesday registration/enrollment at Baguio City National High School. Although we’ve requested and paid for a birth certificate copy, it may not arrive in the mail by Wednesday. So rather than just print our record request confirmation so that Mack can proffer it and say that his birth certificate is “in the mail,” we should endeavor to obtain a certificate in-person. It’ll just take a few hours and PhP 140 more to ensure that Mack has one of his prerequisite documents in-hand, rather than hope of receiving one in the mail.

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All this scurrying around trying to accomplish tasks and obtain things, taking people to physicians and pharmacies, shopping for groceries, trying to get a water tank fabricated, getting a chicken coop fabricated and stocked and so on gives me a glimpse of what parenting is like. †