Bureaucracy

On the morning of my 18th birthday, I was woken up by my father, who greeted me, "Welcome to the legal world."

This morning, I finally got off my ass, like a schoolkid who pressed the Snooze button too many times, and got around to registering for next year's midterm elections. Yes, I beat the deadline by a day.

Before you start lecturing me about doing things at the last minute, I do realize that I could have registered earlier. I was fully aware of that even as I pulled into the compound where the Comelec office is at half past six this morning to find a line of people that had already stretched all the way to the main road.

I had actually attempted to register on Saturday. Although I arrived at the Comelec at eight in the morning then, the line wasn't as long as it was today. I got my form and filled it out as I fell in line, enduring the heat for a good two hours. Then my dad swung by the Comelec, saw the queue, and told me it would be four p.m. before I would be done. He suggested I come back on Monday, so I left the line.

My dad told me I should have come a lot earlier—six in the morning, at least, two hours before the office would even open—if I didn't want to wait so long. So I planned to wake up early Monday, but that fell through because I'd fallen asleep too late Sunday night.

Fast forward to today. Though I did think to get to the Comelec office earlier, I (naively) didn't think that everyone else would be thinking the same thing, too. Not that I'm complaining—as I said, I know the consequences of doing things at the last minute, and I was ready to deal with them.

The local Comelec office kept things in order pretty well. At eight in the morning, two Comelec employees went through the queue of voters and stapled a priority number to each registrant's application form. They were accompanied by a cop who weeded out those who had cut in line. (May I just say that I have never, ever understood why people think it's okay to cut in line. It's disrespectful and uncivil. Unless you're dying and need urgent medical attention, back of the line, pal.) They would entertain 350 people in the morning and 250 in the afternoon. I was Registrant #160 P.M., and the Comelec employee, irritated by people behind her hounding her for priority stubs, very politely told us to "eat lunch and come back in the afternoon."

So I headed for the Land Transportation Office, another government office notorious for long lines and red tape. I was expecting another two or three hours or so of squeezing myself into tight spaces and filling out complicated forms, but the LTO office was surprisingly uncrowded when I got there, and it took me all of 30 minutes to get my Student's Permit, which I can turn into a license in five months' time. Oddly, though, I was offered those little red wallets you're supposed to keep your permit in for P30 at almost every window I had to go through. I had to decline because I didn't have change with me, so I'm not sure if they issue government receipts for those things.

I had enough time to go back home, rest a little, and eat lunch before going back to the Comelec. When I got there at a little before one, there was still a small crowd around the entrance, and a small-voiced woman was screaming out names at the door. They were collecting the forms of those with priority numbers in batches of 20 and calling them out. The crowd could barely hear her amidst the chatter. People were growing impatient and started to complain. "How disorganized," I heard one say. "These Comelec people are stupid," commented another. I had to shake my head.

Not much later, another Comelec employee emerged from the office's balcony on the second floor, wielding a megaphone. "Good afternoon," the woman began. She asked everyone not to crowd around the entrance, give his form to the Comelec employee at the door, and wait for his number to be called. Easy peasy.

At half past three I was in line at the stairway. Fifteen minutes later, I was waiting to have my picture taken. At four p.m. I walked down the crowded stairway and squeezed my way past the small crowd that had begun to gather at the door again, thankful that I had been spared the worst of Philippine bureaucracy while doing my civic duty.

Have you registered yet? What's your #votersregistration story?