IT WAS not simple red tape, but a bureaucratic maze that I got myself into trying to transfer to my name a used vehicle I recently acquired.
Monday, 1 p.m., I went to the Highway Patrol Group office at Camp Olivas. An officer courteously asked me to please be seated on a bench and wait as it was still their lunch break till 1:30.
Exactly at 1:30, I was told that I had to wait for some fellow who got some documents from Land Bank which I needed as a requisite for the issuance of a motor vehicle clearance. So while waiting, could I please accomplish a form for that purpose.
Almost 3 p.m. when the fellow came from Land Bank and I dutifully queued to the window marked “Please transact your business here.”
A blank Land Bank billing form, signed at the bottom by the issuing authority, was handed to me with the instruction: “Please pay at Land Bank and return with this form and your receipt. It is too late now as Land Bank processes these payments only until 11 a.m. So be guided accordingly.”
With the officer’s suggestion that I might as well made good of my time at Olivas by subjecting my car to “micro stenciling,” I made my way to the nearby PNP Crime Lab. It took all of 25 minutes of paper pushing and actual stenciling for that phase to be done.
Tuesday, 9:20 a.m., I was at Land Bank along Gapan-Olongapo Road, queued to get my number – 98, and waited for my turn at the counter, which at that time was serving Number 38.
That Land Bank branch looked more like some bus terminal in some backwater town in the far reaches of Mindanao than a bank. It was filled to over-capacity – all four rows of 10 dilapidated plastic “terminal” chairs fronting the tellers’ counter and five rows of five chairs in various stages of dilapidation occupied. I counted over 80 people at the bank, aside from the tellers, some other bank staff and the security guards.
For over an hour – everything that was wrong with the bureaucracy unfolded before my eyes.
The bank had seven slots at its service counter – specially marked for sectors they serve as PNP, PVAO, SSS, BIR, Pag-IBIG, Philhealth, Inter-branch, private depositors, LGUs, government agencies, etc. – but only four were operational. You could deduce the waiting time from there.
What broke my heart was the sight of senior citizens there – waiting to encash their pension checks I presumed – braving the confined heat barely cooled by freon-challenged air-conditioning units.
Could there be no way for the elders to just be served right in the comfort of their own homes? I found it inhuman to subject one grandpa in crutches to such an ordeal just for some thousand pesos. It is in cases such as this that the Land Bank-on-wheels should have been directed.
Tuesday, 10:35 a.m., I got my all important Land Bank receipt for P300 for the motor vehicle clearance.
Rushed to Olivas, no, it was a struggle what with the Del Pilar bridge closed for destruction, er, construction and the detour through the city proper bogged down with the flooded pot-holed portion of MacArthur Highway in Barangay Sta. Lucia also under the slowest pace of construction.
Nerves nearly frayed, I arrived at HPG in nearly an hour – through some 4 kilometers, would you believe? – only to be told, most courteously, that their “machine” has bogged down and would I just please submit my papers and get my clearance the following day?
Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. through the maze of detours and potholed roads I returned to HPG and – immediately – got the clearance.
Is there no way to simplify the process here? For Land Bank to just deputize HPG to collect the payment for what the HPG itself is issuing and just remit them to Land Bank on, say, a weekly basis? Much time, energy and money is wasted in just going to and from the two agencies. But then that is the very essence of Philippine bureaucracy, somebody told me.
Thursday, 10:55 a.m., I submitted the papers to the Land Transportation Office in Angeles City for the transfer of the car’s ownership. The process took less than 30 minutes.
Why soooo sloooow at Land Bank and at Olivas when it could be so fast at the LTO? Because there is a charming angel at the Angeles LTO by the name of Aida Santiago.
Now, were all government agencies had an Aida Santiago, the public would have been most contented and happy. Most assuredly, Ma’am Aida is one saving grace of the government bureaucracy.
Monday, 1 p.m., I went to the Highway Patrol Group office at Camp Olivas. An officer courteously asked me to please be seated on a bench and wait as it was still their lunch break till 1:30.
Exactly at 1:30, I was told that I had to wait for some fellow who got some documents from Land Bank which I needed as a requisite for the issuance of a motor vehicle clearance. So while waiting, could I please accomplish a form for that purpose.
Almost 3 p.m. when the fellow came from Land Bank and I dutifully queued to the window marked “Please transact your business here.”
A blank Land Bank billing form, signed at the bottom by the issuing authority, was handed to me with the instruction: “Please pay at Land Bank and return with this form and your receipt. It is too late now as Land Bank processes these payments only until 11 a.m. So be guided accordingly.”
With the officer’s suggestion that I might as well made good of my time at Olivas by subjecting my car to “micro stenciling,” I made my way to the nearby PNP Crime Lab. It took all of 25 minutes of paper pushing and actual stenciling for that phase to be done.
Tuesday, 9:20 a.m., I was at Land Bank along Gapan-Olongapo Road, queued to get my number – 98, and waited for my turn at the counter, which at that time was serving Number 38.
That Land Bank branch looked more like some bus terminal in some backwater town in the far reaches of Mindanao than a bank. It was filled to over-capacity – all four rows of 10 dilapidated plastic “terminal” chairs fronting the tellers’ counter and five rows of five chairs in various stages of dilapidation occupied. I counted over 80 people at the bank, aside from the tellers, some other bank staff and the security guards.
For over an hour – everything that was wrong with the bureaucracy unfolded before my eyes.
The bank had seven slots at its service counter – specially marked for sectors they serve as PNP, PVAO, SSS, BIR, Pag-IBIG, Philhealth, Inter-branch, private depositors, LGUs, government agencies, etc. – but only four were operational. You could deduce the waiting time from there.
What broke my heart was the sight of senior citizens there – waiting to encash their pension checks I presumed – braving the confined heat barely cooled by freon-challenged air-conditioning units.
Could there be no way for the elders to just be served right in the comfort of their own homes? I found it inhuman to subject one grandpa in crutches to such an ordeal just for some thousand pesos. It is in cases such as this that the Land Bank-on-wheels should have been directed.
Tuesday, 10:35 a.m., I got my all important Land Bank receipt for P300 for the motor vehicle clearance.
Rushed to Olivas, no, it was a struggle what with the Del Pilar bridge closed for destruction, er, construction and the detour through the city proper bogged down with the flooded pot-holed portion of MacArthur Highway in Barangay Sta. Lucia also under the slowest pace of construction.
Nerves nearly frayed, I arrived at HPG in nearly an hour – through some 4 kilometers, would you believe? – only to be told, most courteously, that their “machine” has bogged down and would I just please submit my papers and get my clearance the following day?
Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. through the maze of detours and potholed roads I returned to HPG and – immediately – got the clearance.
Is there no way to simplify the process here? For Land Bank to just deputize HPG to collect the payment for what the HPG itself is issuing and just remit them to Land Bank on, say, a weekly basis? Much time, energy and money is wasted in just going to and from the two agencies. But then that is the very essence of Philippine bureaucracy, somebody told me.
Thursday, 10:55 a.m., I submitted the papers to the Land Transportation Office in Angeles City for the transfer of the car’s ownership. The process took less than 30 minutes.
Why soooo sloooow at Land Bank and at Olivas when it could be so fast at the LTO? Because there is a charming angel at the Angeles LTO by the name of Aida Santiago.
Now, were all government agencies had an Aida Santiago, the public would have been most contented and happy. Most assuredly, Ma’am Aida is one saving grace of the government bureaucracy.
