Working in a bank has its perks, one of which is that I get to see the machinery of the government in the distance while not exactly being involved in it directly.
To explain my point, an example is in order. Right now, we're experiencing some slight headaches with the Register of Deeds (ROD). Titles are not getting annotated because they're undergoing their own "computerization" process, encoding digitally the vast number of titles in their cabinets. What usually took only 3-5 days is taking forever in the ROD.
My personal opinion is that they should penalize whoever their service provider is for not implementing contingency measures to streamline operations despite the ongoing computerization effort. Or maybe, they should instead fire the wise guy on top for pushing for this reform without adequately thinking about how this will hamper the process and how to best mitigate the bad effects.
But still, it's already here. And in the end, I hope we will all be commending the ROD for what it's trying to do (It's been a long time coming, actually).
Other more disturbing stories come to the foreground, however. I got to listen to my boss' stories when she was still working in Manila. Proving that corruption is alive and well in the government, she related how judges and police officers would shamelessly ask for "facilitation fees" so they would be moved to evict people. She also related how BIR personnel would also ask for some dough under the table for documents to be processed "quickly enough". And the ROD also comes to the picture, again, with known rumors of office employees accepting cash to expedite documents.
It's really a dirty game. But I'm also fortunate enough to have met some people who stood by their convictions and didn't play with the rules. Case in point was a broker I met some time ago who had worked for the Commission of Audit. She resigned then and went to brokerage because she finally couldn't stomach the practice prevalent among her colleagues (Ex: tampering documents, collecting "hush money" from companies etc. You know those stuff). Plus, she said it wasn't a nice idea feeding your children using money gained through ill means.
Now, that's a Rose among the thorns.
To explain my point, an example is in order. Right now, we're experiencing some slight headaches with the Register of Deeds (ROD). Titles are not getting annotated because they're undergoing their own "computerization" process, encoding digitally the vast number of titles in their cabinets. What usually took only 3-5 days is taking forever in the ROD.
My personal opinion is that they should penalize whoever their service provider is for not implementing contingency measures to streamline operations despite the ongoing computerization effort. Or maybe, they should instead fire the wise guy on top for pushing for this reform without adequately thinking about how this will hamper the process and how to best mitigate the bad effects.
But still, it's already here. And in the end, I hope we will all be commending the ROD for what it's trying to do (It's been a long time coming, actually).
Other more disturbing stories come to the foreground, however. I got to listen to my boss' stories when she was still working in Manila. Proving that corruption is alive and well in the government, she related how judges and police officers would shamelessly ask for "facilitation fees" so they would be moved to evict people. She also related how BIR personnel would also ask for some dough under the table for documents to be processed "quickly enough". And the ROD also comes to the picture, again, with known rumors of office employees accepting cash to expedite documents.
It's really a dirty game. But I'm also fortunate enough to have met some people who stood by their convictions and didn't play with the rules. Case in point was a broker I met some time ago who had worked for the Commission of Audit. She resigned then and went to brokerage because she finally couldn't stomach the practice prevalent among her colleagues (Ex: tampering documents, collecting "hush money" from companies etc. You know those stuff). Plus, she said it wasn't a nice idea feeding your children using money gained through ill means.
Now, that's a Rose among the thorns.
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