You win, SSS, you win.

I need government-issued IDs. That’s one thing about being an adult that I haven’t gotten around to doing, because trips to government offices always end up as a nightmare. The queing, the waiting, the masungit clerk—I’m beginning to think it’s some kind of rule that people need to suffer before they get what they came for.

 

I went to the SSS office in Makati to apply for an SSS ID. I lined up just to get a form from the guy whose only job is to give the right piece of paper depending on what the person asking for it needs. ( Total waste of manpower, really!)

 

I filled it out and was told to go the ID capture area. So there I was, just floating around, singing Lalala while walking slowly, unaware that a few minutes of delay would have a terrible consequence. As I was walking towards the door of the ID capture area, my pink E-1 form fell out of my envelope and I picked it up, still as slowly and relaxed as I did walking.

 

A person entered the door and I followed suit. And then, this security guard stopped me and said “Ay ma’am cutoff na po.”

Cutoff???It was 8:17 am!

 

So I asked, “Bakit, anong oras ba ang cutoff niyo?”

“First 100 lang po,” the guard said.

 

Would you believe my luck, that I was the 101st person to arrive there? That at the right moment a stinking piece of paper had to fall, and I had to pick it up, so that some lucky bastard guy could get the spot that should’ve been mine? Arrrrgh!

 

And so, I said, Ill be back.

 

SSS, Day 2

I was early but I the ID capture area was already packed. I’d say I was in the last ten of the hundred poor souls SSS would be “servicing” that day. I sat down and reread Memoirs of a Geisha until my butt was sore from sitting/. I waited one and a half hours.

 

Mercifully, my name was called. I absentmindedly brushed my hair with my fingers, prepared to get my picture taken, when the guy who called me said “Temporary number lang yung SSS mo.”

“Po?”

“Kailangan magbigay ka muna ng birth certificate. Balik ka dun sa kabila, bigay mo birth certificate mo.”

 

When I applied for my SSS number years ago when I was a working student, I was never asked for my birth certificate. Now, they said my SSS number (by which I’ve been paying dues to for years) is only a temp because they don’t have my birth certificate in their record.

 

I was told I needed to give them the new NSO printed birth cert and not the old, yellowing piece of junk I’ve had since forever, which by the way looks like I was born in 1923 or something. But I have just been to NSO days ago and was told I needed a valid ID to get a reprint. So what was I to do?

 

I got a postal ID. And with that, I got an NSO birth certificate. And with that, I could go back to SSS.

 

SSS Office, Day 3

I was there at 7am sharp, and there were no people waiting outside. I was positively leaping when I walked towards the glass doors, thinking “At last!” And then, I saw the sign.

ID Capture, Out of Order

I stood there for a full minute or so, wanting to die. Why me, God?Why today?

 

Below the sign, there’s a piece of paper taped to the door that said: “Please proceed to the fllowing SSS offices” and five addresses were listed. One of them was SSS in HK Sun Plaza, Pasay. That was the nearest, and I knew how to go there. So I said, I must not lose hope and felt the need to accomplish something for the day.

 

I took the bus to HK Sun Plaza, whick was like a mall. I walked in the scorching heat of the sun around the whole plaze looking for the SSS office because I didn’t want to take the pedicabs in fear that they would overcharge me. I was dressed pretty nicely.

 

Sweating and thirsty, I found the office which was hidden in a part of the plaza that looked like a warehouse. Several people were lined up, and I got ready with my papers. And then, another sign.

 

ID Capture, Out of Order

And another list of branches I could go to.

 

What is this, the freaking Amazing Race???I wanted to scream, break things, strangle people, run amok, but I ended up crying. I went home in tears with the injustice of it all. I hate you, goverment offices!