Thursday, April 19, 2007 Talk back: Bureaucracy woes By Percival de la torre
THIS is in reaction to Frank Malilong’s column (Sun.Star Cebu, April 11, 2007) on a Cebuana teaching abroad’s ordeal of having to wait for three hours to get her exit visa.
Deplorable as it is, transacting business with a government entity more often than not is a pain in the neck, indeed.
A typical example that government service sucks, to borrow Malilong’s word, is the long queue of people outside the National Statistics Office.
People there have to endure the scorching heat of the sun and fumes from passing cars and jeepneys just to get a birth/marriage certificate.
This apathetic service of the bureaucracy has got to stop once and for all.
I would suggest, therefore, placing in a conspicuous place in every government office (including government owned and controlled corporations like the Social Security System and the Government Service Insurance System) the following notice on what public service should be:
SERVICE IN THIS OFFICE IS FRIENDLY-–ACCURATE—SERIOUS—TOTAL. Submit a signed complaint against an employee not complying with the above rules of conduct indicating your name, address, contact number, date/ time of visit, and nature of transaction.
Suffice it to say, the above declaration would serve as the sword of Damocles over the heads of government bureaucrats who obviously will henceforth carry out their task diligently when dealing with the public.
It is a reminder to the people that they deserve no less than satisfactory service from those in government who earn their living from taxpayers’ money.
And in a way perhaps it would minimize the incidence of graft and corruption.
A government employee will now be placed in a position wherein he/ she will have second thoughts of making up obstacle vis-à-vis a particular transaction as an implied suggestion that a “cash-sabutan” or under-the-table arrangement would be the way out of the predicament.
