Philippine government service is never a stranger to malicious, wrong, shameful and hateful acts directed towards the very people it serves, us. It is happening daily from government civil service front-line workers attending to the needs of the citizens they serve and making them wait for a long time since they are still working on their personal stuff while on duty to asking for some extra money just to deliver the services required from them in a short period of time.
Remember the “tanim-bala” gang (composed of airport employees and authorities) whose modus is planting bullets inside the baggage bags of travelers at several airports and flagging the alleged suspects or victims to extort money? Those who deny them payment are reported to the police thus creating an inconvenience that no traveler wants to experience so the choice is negotiate by giving them money.
Even the Philippine Coast Guard used to have a bowl in front of their inspection tables at the RORO terminals where people getting inspection clearances for their vehicles to be allowed travel are told “bisan pila lang da maam/sir ah!” until of course somebody may have reported it and the practice stopped.
Recently, an incident made waves online after a Filipino victim uploaded her experience on TikTok shaming not only the office involved but the entire government service again as if no president or any amount of reform can resolve these problems.
The incident happened last December inside the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). A Bureau of Immigration (BI) officer flagged a Filipina travelling to Israel who eventually missed her flight and had to pay for a more expensive ticket because of the incident.
Cham Tanteras, the traveler involved, claimed that the BI officer asked her irrelevant questions like if she had brought her yearbook with her. She graduated a decade ago and if so, one can only imagine the discomfort if every traveler will be required to bring their yearbooks with them when flying outside of the country via NAIA. She was also asked if her parents are separated or not. The relevance of such questions raises again the suspicion that BI personnel in NAIA are into the same old and long story of extortion.
After the TikTok post went viral, BI issued an apology. But, is an apology really enough? Why can’t they dig deeper and immediately place the said BI officer under preventive suspension pending a thorough investigation? Are they afraid that they will be placing every BI officer in NAIA under preventive suspension? Remember, for extortion to succeed, everyone must cooperate. Or perhaps, they are ashamed that the world will know that they are hiring incompetent personnel and morons.
In the meantime, one can only speculate as to what shameful act in government service is coming out next.
