GSIS, eCard, bunch of germans, and the Cranky Four-wheel Drive

(Longest post so far, have a cup of coffee first so you can't fall asleep reading...)

Here we go again I had to wake up early. Today we are scheduled to travel to Cagayan de Oro to get ourselves a GSIS eCard. I cant understand why we had to go there personally. Err.. It's a complete waste of time. I had to delay my submission of grades just for this nonsense trip. We had a GSIS field office here in Iligan and we could just have an ID photo taken, sign some documents and let them process the whole thing. It’s their job and they are paid for it. But.. grrr.. they want US to be there, fall in this never ending line, and do all these stupid things. Well I thought maybe they want to see me, so phew I have no choice but be there.

Some of my colleagues has been able to apply and got their eCards few weeks ago. Their stories were freakin DREADFUL! They all say that the line were as long as eternity. There must at least a thousand homo sapiens in the area all waiting their turn in a line. They said they arrived at CDO at 6 AM, waited in line for like forever, and got their card at 5 PM in the afternoon. Err.. 11 hours of waiting in line? Doing nothing the whole day except waiting for the whole line to move? Freakin scary. The technicians doing the eCard application process were like a bunch of turtles in the seashore. It seems like they had to refer to an operating manual every time they push a key in the computer. So freakin SLOW. It's a good thing the Spaniards teach us Filipinos to be maantoson. If it were not, there should be blood everywhere. The GSIS eCard application process sucks! I appreciate their stupidity. Is this all they can managed?

All these stories were just too freakin horrible. As a member of the GSIS, I am "required" to get an eCard and of course had to undergo the same application process. Holy crap.

We leave Iligan at 7:30 PM. We should be in CDO at 9:00 AM but all bad luck on earth break loose. Our coaster's engine suddenly had all these trouble. The fuel couldn’t get to the intake. The whole line from fuel tank to the filter had all this "garbage" that made it difficult for the fuel to flow. Crap! We had to stop every now and then to repair it. We were traveling so slow and we managed to arrive in CDO at 11:30 AM.

The first thing I noticed was the germans with all the colorful dress line up at the entrance. I learned that they are all “chance” applicants, which means they have to wait until the GSIS people allow them to go inside the building and submit their application. You should have a priority letter in order to go directly inside. I feel pity on them, I thought they must have been there waiting in line outside the building for quite some time. It’s 11:30 AM when we got there; they must have been there as early as 6 AM, worse they travel very far and they must be very tired! This must be some kind of racial discrimination, why on Earth they don’t have a priority letter? I can’t answer my stupid question. Whew, since we had the so called “priority” letter (which is just an ordinary paper printed with something), we go directly inside and immediately fall in line. This must be the start of the long agonizing standing ovation I had to undertake. The guard on-duty constantly bugger is to prepare 2 valid ID with picture, and bring only black ink ball pen. Not sign pen, but ONLY ball pen. Again I had no choice but to obey. Since I only have red ink ball pen and a black ink sign pen, either of this two would not be allowed inside the building. Seemed like a red ink ball pen would be a threat in security. Anyway, I searched my bag hoping to find a black ball pen, even though I knew I don’t have one. Then suddenly TWO huge german senior women inserted their huge ass in our line in front of me! WTF? Where’s their manner? I thought they were germans anyway so I didn’t protest. In a very short time we were able to enter the building and I immediately looked for a freakin black ink ball pen, I felt like I would be dragged outside if I don’t have one. Luckily the store attendant inside the canteen let me swapped my sign pen to her ball pen.

Thank goodness our series of bad luck were rewarded by good luck, they were just a very small crowd today and my nightmare of having to stand the whole day in line will not come true! We were allowed to sit on chairs as we waited for our turn. As we scrambled to change our seat (we are still in line, but just seated), these germans were pain in the ass as they would take advantage of the situation to skip from their line. They would immediately stand near the front and try to insert themselves somewhere in the line! I can’t believe this, they’re sure has the guts! Fortunately the GSIS staffs were able to observe them and they were ordered to go back on their line. Which fortunately they had obeyed without complain. I’m just amused coz they’re actually doing the same thing over and over and over, but with no success. I wonder what it would be like in their hometown when they had to submit application form for something, I guess nobody will be considered last coz every one seems to be the first in the line! Just amazing.

Anyway, the whole application process just lasted almost an hour. We got our eCards, had lunch at Kenny Rogers, window shopped a little bit, and we headed home at 1:30 PM. Our coaster’s engine has once again has this all sort of troubles and we were transferred to another vehicle. The females were transferred to the institute van (good for them), and we the guys were thrown to this small, cranky, and odd-looking 1980s four wheel drive donated by Japan to the Philippine Republic. Hail yeah! We were like sardines in the can as we try to settle ourselves at the back compartment of the vehicle. They were 4 of us, and to make matters worse, we could not actually rest our head coz the seat were so small. For almost 3 and a half agonizing hours, we battled dust, heat, diesel exhaust, stiffed neck, butt sore, back pains, and even head contusions since the roof were just millimeters from our scalps. We can’t sleep, we can’t stretch, we can’t move. We just sit there face to face and wait till eternity until we reached home. We just contended ourselves of counting how many police or military checkpoints with road barrier that we could meet along the way. Finally, we reached Iligan at 5:45 PM. I was so exhausted, I wish I would die! But anyway, at least we had the eCard in the short amount of time, but the way we were traveling, it’s just like we were standing in line the whole day just like the others. It’s all even.

By the way, there were exactly 26 checkpoints from the 88 Km stretch between CDO and Iligan. That’s like having 1 police or military checkpoint every 3.4 kilometers. Maybe it’s a world record.

A Trip to Dipolog

First post for the year..
4:00 AM March 8, 2005. It's unnatural for me to woke very early, but surprisingly I was able to do that formidable task that morning. It was raining that night before and it's very cooold. I prefer to curl up and hibernate. But Im half excited because of two things.
1. We will travel to Dipolog City! One of the places in Mindanao I've never seen.
2. Visit our co-faculty who's in the hospital. (That's why Im only "half" excited).

Were supposed to leave Iligan @ 4:30, Im thinking of drinking something hot, brushing my teeth and a hot bath but by just thinking about it cost me 5 minutes, I only have 10 minutes to go so I just washed my sleepy face and changed clothes. It's 4:10 in the morning and not a single mode of transportation were available, so I WALK the whole 600 meters of wet concrete to the campus. It's chilly! At the next crossroad I heard something crying, sounds like a cry of a woman beaten to death! Now that was freaky. But after a while I realized it could be just a canine somewhere. Or a feline vomiting. Weird.

Exactly 4:30 AM we're all settled on the IIT coaster and hit the road. We reached Mukas port at 6 AM and crossed the calm sea in a barge to Ozamiz City (just a 15 minute boat ride)..

The Bams on the barge to Ozamiz City. It's raining! That's me with a white cap.

We had our breakfast at Oroquieta City @ 7 AM. I dont know what's the name of that carenderia, I supposed to pay P35.00 but the owner just ask for P20. That was weird. As weird as their CR!! can you imagine a CR which is only a small "hole" in the floor? And beneath is nothing but sea? Talk about pollution! The city government of Oroquieta should do something about this.

We reached Dapitan City and finally reached Dipolog City at 10:30 AM and got to visit our colleague. Hmmm.. the nurses in that hospital were cute. We had also a fun moment with a policeman we called "sarge". He seems to be on the right place at the right time. Everytime we're on trouble with locating places, he is there! Weird.

Sir Bobot with his wife and some of the bams. He seems to be okay. Wish he could recover soon.

We leave Dipolog City at 1:50 PM. Im amused coz it seems like everytime we see food on the road we had to stop and buy them. Of course we had to ate them, and for the rest of the trip we do nothing but EAT! We took a short break and visit the Misamis Occidental Aquamarine Park (MOAP). The place was amazing. Nature at its best.

A quick stop at the Aquamarine Park. It's funny Im always at the left side of the picture. Man, look at my hair! Hehehe, I looked like a girl!!

We reached Ozamiz City at 6 PM and crossed the sea to Mukas. Its funny the barge lost its bearing in the dark maybe 200 meters from the port. Maybe because it was very dark that time. That's strange. But luckily we landed safe a few minutes later. The last part of the journey back home were boring, it's dark and I couldnt see a thing along the road. Finally we reached Iligan by 7 PM but was delayed coz a stupid trailer truck got stuck in the bridge. We had to detour somewhere else. It's okay coz I've seen part of Iligan which I havent seen so far. Aaaahhh Im soooo tired.

That was a fun trip overall, we had to visit 4 cities along the way. And seeing the green and chilly countryside just makes me appreciate the beauty of our country. While everyone is jammed in the noisy, hot, and dirty cities, here are the vast green, peaceful and happy rural villages. Full of life and invigorating. My dream is to live one of these rural places in the last years of my life. I was born and grow up in a little green town, now Im working in a big city, but chosing between the two I would love to be in the little green place which is my home.