THESE past many days I had business transactions in an office in the building where the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) office in Bacolod is also located.
As such, I had the chance to always observe for days the ground floor of the building, which was always full of people from all walks of life.
These people from the different towns and cities in Negros Occidental, from far away from San Carlos City in the north and from Hinoba-an in the south, came to Bacolod for the same primary purpose – to transact business in the PSA.
In the minds of the public in general, the PSA is a government agency to go to when you need a birth certificate, a marriage certificate, a Cenomar (Certificate of No Marriage Record), or request for a death certificate.
However, although PSA (popularly known as the National Statistics Office or NSO before its change of name) is noted as the agency that issues birth certificate and marriage certificate for example, it also serves as the central statistical authority on primary data collection in the Philippines by conducting censuses on different sectors of the Philippine economy such as population, housing, agriculture, fisheries and business.
PSA, in addition, enforces the civil registration functions in the Philippines.
So, every day, from early morning up to the afternoon, the premises of the PSA office in East 2 Corporate Center, corner Diola-Circumferential Road, Barangay Villamonte, are always full of people.
These people transacting business had to wait for many hours – wait for hours just for payment of the documents that they are requesting, wait for the release of the documents, until their names are called to get the documents.
Some people told me they had waited for five hours already, valuable time which could have been spent to do other things.
The problem in PSA Bacolod is that it has small office vis-à-vis the number of people transacting business with, so people had to wait outside, many are sitting, standing, and some had even to sit on the floor of the passageway.
Others are found sitting on the stairs leading to the second floor going to the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) offices.
Indeed, people complain of the slow PSA services, due to few personnel who are doing their best to serve a lot of people. The PSA personnel are very nice and efficient, it is their system that is slow.
On its signage outside its office, PSA’s branding are: Solid. Responsive. World-Class.
However, when you observe the number of people who transact business every day, from Monday to Friday, some coming very early in the morning and wait for many hours in the hot premises, it makes your blood boil.
You then wonder why this kind of system continues to happen in this technology-driven day and age – where people had to pay for a government agency services and made to wait for hours.
Times are changing and PSA has to change for the better – to improve its system, hire more personnel, make releasing of documents faster so that it can serve its clients and the public in an efficient and effective manner.*
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