GSIS eCard, anyone?

As the GSIS eCard hoopla rages on, you, a GSIS member from Surigao del Sur (SDS), become a casualty of a system that all your friends think is a study in chaos. But first things first.

You understand that the GSIS needs to streamline its present system; you understand the GSIS when it says that the eCard is the way to go because it serves as your ID card in all your GSIS transactions; you understand that the eCard can be used as an ATM card and a debit/credit card to pay for goods and services at retailers or suppliers worldwide who accept it. What you don’t understand however is why you are subjected to these pointless troubles.

To get a GSIS eCard in Davao City, you need to have an enrolment form duly approved by your governor. When you leave, your eCard holder officemates warn you about the hellish experience and give you some survival tips. It’s already the first week of February and for sure the system has improved, you say.

You get off the bus in front of SM Davao at 4:00 in the morning. At the east wing, you see people milling about, others sitting on the gutter. You are correct in thinking that these people got there shortly after midnight. With them, you wait.

A mad scramble as the GSIS team arrives; hands jut, asking for priority numbers. Just when you have wormed your way, you’re told to go to the other side where Surigaonons are supposed to line up. You look around for some signages to guide you. Nada.

Using a megaphone, a man shouts for everybody to toe the line, but the crowd is deaf. Holding your priority number, you ask the megaphone man. It’s line five for SDS, he says. The lines criss-cross but you find your way and queue. Wanting to chat, you ask the woman in front of you if she’s from SDS. She says no. You scratch your head as she points you to the right SDS line which is two rows to your left. Going to the tail end of another long line, you look around for some signages. Again nada.

It’s past 6:00 AM; the lines snake from the SM door to the other corner. The man with the megaphone shouts some instructions but you can’t hear him.

SM does not open until 8:30 and so the crowd moves, shifts and grumbles. The sun comes out and you have nowhere to hide because the thin trees cast their shadows against the SM wall. Sweat beads at your temples and you feel your knees shake. Sitting on your heels, you secretly thank God for not giving you kidneys the size of lanzones, or else.

For hours you alternately hear nothing but complaints from restless people and the screams of the megaphone man repeating the same instructions.

When SM finally opens, the people are almost ballistic and the megaphone man has gone hoarse. Serves him right; instead of verbal instructions, a simple idiot board would have saved him and you some troubles.

All hell breaks loose at the SM entrance where the crowd is so dense that every square meter of floor space has 10 people in it. To you, it feels like crossing the Red Sea without Moses.

You try to get ahead but you’re helplessly stuck. As the human tsunami surges this way and that, you coast along without people realizing you are not moving under your own steam.

The situation turns death defying at the second level of SM where, on the narrow hallway, you are packed like cigarettes. Faced with the horrors of claustrophobia and asphyxia, you palpitate. People inch their way from opposite directions, ducking barricades, human and otherwise. There is plenty of shouting, mostly from the GSIS men. But above the din of irate voices, the megaphone man reigns supreme as he swears and screams.

You’re number 36, but it’s taking so long for you to get served, making you wonder if all that queuing early in the morning is for naught! Grumbling, you swap practical suggestions for a no-brainer systemic failure on the part of GSIS. It’s all a matter of providing process flow information through signages that people can read from a distance, others say. Ironically, GSIS hangs tarpaulin streamers that don’t help like the one that says, “Tapos na ang maligayang araw nila.” Again it makes you wonder if GSIS is referring to you and your tribulations.

Another hour passes before you enter a dungeon where you are to sit on conjoined chairs, the better to treat you to a slow game of musical chairs as you move nearer to being served by one of the unsmiling six encoders. From here, it’s a 2-hour waiting game for you.

As you sit there imbibing the funny smells of your fellow GSIS members, a thought hits you: What’s the point of all this?

You didn’t ask for the eCard system, the GSIS did. So it must be incumbent upon the GSIS to make everything a breeze to you. But no, the GSIS encumbers you with an awful system while robbing you and the national and local government units with precious resources. Quickly you do some Math.

The Civil Service Commission says that SDS has 8,842 filled up government positions. Because you are all given three days, on official time, to process your eCard in Davao City, the government loses man-hours valued at P7,957,800 (8,842x300x3 days), assuming an average daily wage of P300. And because you are made to bear the Tandag-Davao-Tandag bus fare of P600 and the cost of food and accommodation pegged at 300 a day, all of you must shell out a total of P13,263,000. In short, SDS incurs P21,220,800 just for its employees to have an eCard. Multiply this amount with the total number of provinces and cities and you end up with a figure neat enough to buy all the paintings of Juan Luna!

You are told that Mindanao has only Davao and Cagayan de Oro as processing centers because it’s risky to bring the equipment to the provinces. But as you sit there, you inventory the equipment: a computer set, a webcam and a smaller-than-a-fax-machine biometer designed to take your right and left index fingerprints. Why, you say to yourself, even SSS and LTO are using them in SDS.

It’s past noon and your stomach growls as you watch others nibble at some crackers. You stare at the tarpaulin that has the GSIS begging your indulgence for the inconvenience. Playing tricks, your mind changes the meaning of GSIS to “Great Suffering Inside SM.” In spite of your famished self, you grin.

By the time your photo is taken, you’re worn-down that you don’t recognize yourself on the computer monitor. You request for a reshoot and get none.

At two in the afternoon, you’re finally done. And on your way out, you see another GSIS tarpaulin that says: NOW YOU HAVE THE POWER! In reflex, you look at your eCard and get mocked by your worst photo ever. You run to the rest room. And there you puke.

(p.s. mental pervert intends to submit this to the philippine daily inquirer.)