CENOMAR / PSA - The Dumaguete Experience

[BrettGC]

TL;DR version:  Do it online, ask a friend here if you can use their address to have the hard copies mailed. 

So we arrived at PSA (Philippine Statistics Authority) at around 10am, the PSA for those that don't know, is the equivalent of Births, Deaths and Marriages in many other countries.  We entered one office to fill out the required paperwork which in our case was quite extensive as we required a CENOMAR for both of us - the Philippine version of a Certificate of no Impedance - AM's birth certificate as she insisted the one we'd obtained online last year had "expired" - sometimes it's not worth arguing - and a death certificate for her ex-husband.  

We then went to a "marshal" who checked the applications and then issued us a number.  We were given 299.  We then had to go to the office next door where not "Now Serving" display showed 205.  Needless to say I died a little inside.  

Around 3 hours later, after the break at midday that the staff are not supposed to take en-masse anymore but rather stagger it but they took en-masse anyway, our number was finally called.  "Excellent!" I thought to myself.  But no, this was only to pay for the requested documents and hand in the request forms.  

So, after another 90 mins or so, we were called to the "releasing" counter, where we were informed, after handing our only copy of the receipt and AM's passport to the attendant, that they were still processing two of the documents and could we please wait.  She didn't hand over the two that had been finalised or return AM's passport and our receipt.    

Another 60 minute wait and we were called to the counter again and finally given all our documents.  We had to ask for AM's passport and our receipt back.

Anyway, it's all done now and we immediately went and obtained multiple certified copies to hopefully avoid the entire experience in the future.  

A brief discussion with Kev on Facebook sort of confirmed my suspicion that we struck a particularly bad day.

It's more fun in The Philippines!!

 

[hk blues]

I had my own example of the mind-numbing bureaucracy here today - I have a payment I make annually to the BIR which has to be done through an agent bank.  So, along we went to our local BPI to make the payment (due end January).  Sorry they said - the form needs to be verified at the BIR before payment as of this year.  So, a trip to the BIR for a person to stamp the form "verified" - nothing was verified or checked.  Then, a rush back to BPI to make their 1pm cut-off time (why so early I wonder????)

As mentioned above, it's more fun in the Philippines!