One for the Books

This is probably the most productive day I’ve had as a citizen of the Philippines.

Today, my line manager asked me to submit my notes for a meeting we had last week and I sent him a four-page-long document. Thematically sorted with sufficient analysis. In less than an hour. He told me that he was expecting a couple of lines in bullet form but he was blown away. HE HE HE. He liked it so much that when I asked him if I can go home early, he said I could leave right away if I want to. And so, at exactly 2:15 in the afternoon, I packed my bags and left the office. :D

That’s not really the story.

That was just the set-up to the real deal. Hehe.

See, office jobs in the Philippines usually require you to stay until 5PM. Since I’m out way too early, I had so much time on my hands. So from 2PM to 5PM, I did a lot of things that would have probably taken me a week to do. Each of these things had its own story so here goes:

First, I went to the City Assessor’s Office. I’m not sure if I told you this already but I’m planning to build a house. :D Growing up, I’ve never had a proper address. I lived with my grandma and she is too cool to be bothered by mailing addresses. In fact, if you want to go look for me, I couldn’t give you a house number and a street. I’ll just tell you I live in Manday, a district in Cotabato, and I live on the left side of the road. And that if you are to look for me, ask them where “Kagui Racma” lives. My grandmother lives in a different world than the rest of us. She does not have an address. She is THE address.

The other day, I received the electricity bill and the mailing address said “Del Pilar Street”. This is hilarious because: 1) there are no numbers and buildings in the address line; it just said “DEL PILAR STREET”; 2) we do not live along Del Pilar Street; 3) there is no Del Pilar Street in Cotabato City. It’s funny because my grandmother said she lives in Del Pilar Street and the electricity utility company just accepted it. LOL. 

But of course, I cannot rely on my grandmother’s bad-assery for life. I want a house. A proper house. With rooms. And a proper kitchen. A place where I can bring my friends and have them stay should they want to visit me when I’m here. A place with a proper address that I can use should I order stuff online. I want a house just so I can have an address.

And so, I started looking for one. I talked to my aunt and she agreed that we will help each other in building this house. But before that, I need to find a residential lot. So I did. I found one for sale along this long stretch of a road beyond the city center. I think it would qualify as a suburb. I’ve met the owner, discussed with her, and gave a downpayment. But because I live in Cotabato City where every child understands that the rule of the city is “never trust anyone”, I asked for a copy of the land title and had it checked at the City Assessor’s Office. Apparently, the area where I am to buy the lot had several cadastral issues. So one uncle, who is also an engineer, strongly recommended that I should verify whether the land title is legitimate before I pay the rest of the sale. I went to the City Assessor’s Office today and had the lot verified. And yay! It doesn’t have cadastral issues.

Next step… PAGIBIG. I just learned this week that PAGIBIG is a government-owned and controlled corporation for mutual funds. All I know about PAGIBIG growing up is that it is an agency where you can apply loans if you want to buy a house. Haha. I kinda want a house soon so I’m thinking of getting a loan. I’ve never tried doing loans and I know nothing about them. So, today, I went to a PAGIBIG branch in the city and asked a lot of questions. I also confirm today that Moros, especially those in the government, have shitty customer service skills in general. LOL

Now, I’ve been to two government offices at this point: City Assessor’s and PAGIBIG. IN ONE DAY! This is a major accomplishment in Bureaucratic Philippines!

Afterward, I walked to Super, the main marketplace in Cotabato, and looked for an interviewee for a side-project I’m doing with my colleague, Miraj. I found a certain Babu Monera after ten minutes of scouring the place. I still have so much time left!

So I went to the post office. The Cotabato City Post office is one of the most desolate-looking buildings I’ve ever laid my eyes on. It’s so sad and the postal service it provides is none the happier. Its office hours are between 8am to 5pm, Mondays to Fridays. That’s the time everyone is in school or at work! It means if you would want to get something at the post office, you’d need to at least allocate half a day off work or school to do so! I’m willing to bet only 2% of Cotabateños were able to avail the services of the post office in their lifetime.

Anyway, I went there because Vico sent me a letter last June and it’s still nowhere here. I’ve long learned not to trust government offices in Cotabato and the post office tops the list of the sketchiest offices based from reviews. They do not have the most stellar reputation so, today, I went there with the goal of uncovering the nasty secrets of the city post office. And I did! I found out that they still write their inventories (IN THIS AGE OF MASSIVE DIGITIZATION!) on paper and that they do not have a system of sorting out letters. Also, the office looks like a jail. Broken tiles, dirty walls, rusty grills, and a rickety ceiling fan (that must have been older than me) in every room. I felt sad. No wonder the people there are ineffective and inefficient. Who would even enjoy going to work in such a sad, sad environment? :( I talked to one of the mailmen in charge of the district I am in and asked about the process of receiving letters. I am so tempted to conduct a how-to-sort-things 101 workshop because wow, what the place lacked in facilities, it made up with total disorganization. I also kinda want to send a letter to the city mayor asking her to renovate the building at least. Sigh.

Anyway, I learned that letters from abroad usually arrive after three months. September is the third month from June so let’s see how this goes.

Government office count: 3

This is fantastic! It wasn’t even 5PM yet!

I then went to a local department store to buy plastic containers and then proceeded to the wet market to buy fish. The vendors already know me as ‘the girl who refuses to use plastic bags’ but the look on the fish vendor’s face when I took out the plastic container from my bag for the fish is hilarious. I witnessed a literal jaw drop. LOL. Apparently, the practice of reducing waste and bringing your own container is considered “high tech”. Smh.

I ended the day by calling Globe and asking why it is taking them ten thousand years to deliver the handset I ordered. My order was followed up for the second time. Still fresh from the Cotabato City government office encounters, I looked up the website of the courier and sent a message to the field executive. He replied and said he will prioritize the package for delivery tomorrow. My sister told me that she tried calling and texting that number multiple times and received no reply at all. I figured it’s because she did not use English. Ah, Filipinos. So weird. They will only take you seriously if you speak to them in English.

So yeah. On a normal day, visiting government offices and dealing with multiple inefficiencies is… impossible. Because these things will take more than a day! Perhaps even a week! But we’ve weathered through that. And I’m glad.

I guess it’s safe to say that today is a miracle. How was yours? :)