Saturday, May 30, 2009

Quite an experience


One of the most visited and busiest public offices in downtown Cagayan de oro City is the National Statistics Office (NSO).

Transacting business at the National Statistics Office (NSO) in Cagayan de oro City is quite an experience – a chaotic experience that could test our patience and our resistance to dehydration.

Whether we like it or not, the NSO is now a part of our existence. Virtually all proofs of our identities, driver license, professional license, passport, etc., now require us to obtain “official” records from the NSO as support documents.

I went there Last Thursday May 28, 2009 to get my authenticated birth certificate for some purposes.

Sad to say, my experience at the particular public establishment got me so disgusted about. It does not dwell though, on official responsibilities and accountabilities attendant hereto. But mind you, it could drive some applicants to the brink of a heatstroke.

On that same day, I woke up very much early which is beyond my 'usual wake up hours' just to get my birth certificate. I arrived at around 7:30 in the morning and whoa! when I saw the people, I thought it was some kind of fiesta around there. I got my priority no. which written to be no. 35.. So, at that very moment, I felt very happy. Who would not be? Receiving that no. is an accomplishment, thinking that it's just paid off my early morning breakthrough.. But oh well, I was thinking too much. Guess what? That no. 35 is good for 2nd batch role call. The first batch is until 600. What the heck?

I waited there for almost 3 hrs. Thinking and hoping that their system would be fast like their motto 'serbilis' or in short for 'serbisyo bilis' or to translate in english, 'fast service'. But it was a total opposite. There comes an announcement that their system has encountered problems, so on and so forth.

The queue of people with assigned numbers is brain-cracking. The situation inside and outside the office made it looked like sardines. the surrounding was so hot maybe just because, they do not have the best location that is accessible to residents here and other people in Region 10.

So I decided to go back later in the afternoon. I ate my lunch here in our house and slept for almost 1 hour. When I get back, I thought again that maybe my priority no. would be called super later in the afternoon maybe around 4pm. But hey! I was wrong. It was just so timing when I arrived around 1pm, my no. was called. Well, I just believe miracles do happen. Finally, I got my birth certificate and there, I'm glad I'm done.

As I walked far, I glanced back to all the people who are left in there, waiting, starving, tired and maybe dieing (i think) then, I just thought...

What really matters here is not only the tenants or even guards in there but the top NSO officials who failed to have a proper organizational plan to make things easy. If only NSO personnel empathize with our situation by means of implementing an organized and efficient service that any income-generating government office should deliver. It was very unfortunate that they overlooked this little hole of justice in their hasty compliance with the rule of law.

There is no intent to offend anybody but for as long as this simple mess is left unattended by NSO officials, the ones who get screwed in the end are still the people from far flung areas –as usual.

Finally, NSO-Cagayan de oro City and NSO branches all over the Philippines should realize that we are humans, too, who could get dehydrated and could become weak when subjected to agonizing humidity and heat for hours. It could at least install more electric fans to provide adequate ventilation, or better still, install air conditioning units in the waiting/transaction area. Or at a very least provide some chairs and roof covering (if this is the right term) for all the people waiting outside rather than letting the people sat everywhere and heated by direct sunlight.

Because it is earning at least a Hundred thousand from us every day, we believe that these little suggestions would not be such a big burden to NSO-CDOC. We look forward to the day when every transaction we process at NSO-CDOC would be a pleasant experience.

Sorry to comment about the system of your services in office, but if I won’t do it, who will? I just hope to have made your day in this column. You ask for it and I believe ex uno disce omnes - from this one – you may learn all!


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1 comments:

Print Business Cards on June 6, 2009 at 1:05 PM said...

Hey!
Actually NSO now has a delivery service wherein you can call their office and have the documents you need delivered to your house. However, I'm not sure if you can avail that over at CDO, but you can try. Sorry to hear about your bad experience.

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