‘Bilis!’ (Or how we endure red tape)

I couldn’t help but smile when my fingerprints were being taken digitally for an NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) clearance… At the University of the Philippines Diliman’s Palma (AS) Hall.

It brought back memories of the last time I had to get an NBI clearance, which was in a cavernous building in Quiapo, Manila, that might as well have been a slaughterhouse. There were no smiling faces from NBI personnel or from the people getting the clearance. We queued in a long and slow-moving line to get one procedure done, and then moved on to the next long line. Sometimes we got to the end of the line only to be told that we had missed a procedure or a document, and had to move back to another line. The last station was for fingerprinting; right after the procedure, a clerk offered a piece of tissue paper to wipe off the ink, for P5!

The NBI clearance has become emblematic of government red tape because it really is a ritual of passage, something every Filipino has to get through at least once in one’s life, often several times.

The stories told involving the NBI clearance speak of red tape generating more red tape; the document is needed for all sorts of reasons, from applying for a job to adopting a child. The last time I had to get an NBI clearance, it was to meet a requirement of UP Manila: It wanted me to teach, and never mind that I was still in active service at UP Diliman, where I had been teaching for more than 20 years.

This time around, I needed the document because one of our institutes needed to get a license from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency to handle dangerous chemicals. As head of UP Diliman, I needed to be cleared.

Alphabet soup

Getting an NBI clearance is no longer an ordeal. At Palma Hall, it took all of five minutes to get the application in, biometrics included. The clearance will take two days, with a gentle warning that my name is very common. It’s something I know all too well because I have four namesakes wanted for various crimes, so whenever I travel I have to bring a “Certificate of Not the Same Person,” which I was trying to renew in Palma Hall but couldn’t because the Department of Justice didn’t have a kiosk there.

We did have an alphabet soup of most of the other government agencies that handle important papers, from the Philippine Statistics Authority or PSA (take note, no longer the NSO) for birth and marriage certificates to Philhealth, Pag-Ibig, SSS, GSIS, BIR (I’m skipping their full names). You can’t get a passport there, but yes, you can get a driver’s license renewed at the Land Transportation Office kiosk.

All this was part of a joint UP and Civil Service Commission ARTA (Anti-Red Tape Act) Caravan that runs up to today, a way to orient UP students, faculty and staff to what government agencies have done to reduce red tape.

CSC Chair Alicia dela Rosa-Bala spoke about the ARTA and how it is connected as well to anticorruption efforts. The more procedures there are for a transaction, the more opportunities there are for corruption. I thought, too, of how a delay in a government transaction almost always makes people wonder if there is corruption involved.

She also mentioned a Report Card Survey of 1,114 government agencies on compliance with the Anti-Red Tape Act. There were six rated outstanding, 353 excellent, 697 good, and 43 acceptable. Fifteen were rated failures. She said the ones who “failed” constituted only 1.5 percent, but it was still important to get to them, and the lower performers, to improve.

University of ‘Pila’

I asked Chair Bala if UP was included in the survey, and she said, smiling, “No.” It could have been “Not yet.”

Just over the weekend, there was an Inquirer article about UP as the “University of Pila”—a reference to the lengthy lines for registration.

I do not want to sound defensive, but I have explained to students and parents that registration in UP Diliman is especially difficult because we have some 25,000 students allowed to choose what subjects they want to take, under whom, and at what day and time. We also have seven required general education subjects (for example, history of the Philippines), meaning all 25,000 students have to take these subjects at some point during their four or five years in UP.

That’s a lot of processing to do, and while we do have computerized enlistment, the “good” professors and time slots are snapped up all too quickly, so the rest have to line up for other choices.

Then there’s the payment procedure. I have wondered why we don’t allow online credit card payments, and the explanation is that we can deal only with government banks. It was only recently that we finally received authorization to accept online credit card payments for alumni donations, and this is limited to Mastercard, which is handled by the Development Bank of the Philippines.

It’s not just students who suffer from red tape. I have begged for, but have been turned down, permission to use digital signatures on contracts and other official papers. The legal requirement is that we have to sign each and every page of a contract, which can mean more than 10 pages for a contract, and up to 10 copies each. That means more than 100 signatures (even if only initials for most pages) per contract.

It’s all supposed to maximize security but I worry: The more signatures there are, the greater the chances of someone being able to forge your signature.

But I’m optimistic. As a senior citizen, I will say I have seen improvements over the years. Even my father, who complains about anything and everything, told me the other day how amazed he was at being able to pay property taxes within an hour at San Juan City Hall. He is 90 years old and he handled the transaction all on his own, accompanied by the family driver.

Yet, the family driver is always asking me if I know anyone in the NBI, the LTO, or some other government agency where he needs to get papers processed. For lower-income classes, government agencies are still intimidating. State employees can take a day off with paid leave if they have to handle government transactions; private employees do not have that ironic benefit.

There’s so much that goes into anti-red tape campaigns. It’s not just streamlining procedures but also getting service providers to be friendly. Yet there’s a vicious cycle here: “when there are too many tedious procedures, you get grouchy staff, who then upset the clients, who get rude (yes, please consider that factor too—power-trippers especially, who drop names and expletives).

Let’s fight red tape, but let’s also be more appreciative of the gains that have been made. With time, we’ll hear less of “Bilis, bilis” (Quick, quick) said in anger, and more of “Bilis, ah. Salamat po!” (That was fast. Thank you!)

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mtan@inquirer.com.ph