scenes across the glass window

location: makati police station
purpose: obtain a police clearance

two out of three windows were manned and a queue of about ten sweaty bodies snaked outside each window. around a dozen more people milled around, not really knowing what to do, waiting for nothing, asking the wrong people, lining up, and either scratching their heads or frowning. A lone table was situated outside where a convivial man with half a smile handed me out a form. So I fill it out using a borrowed pen. Where’s a ballpen vendor when you need one? They practically hang around government offices from NBI to DFA, peddling pens, envelopes, and passport covers.

“Third floor, new building,” the Convivial Man With Half A Smile instructed me after looking over my filled out form.

Cut to next scene: The Cashier
The cashier told me that if I were applying for a police clearance for an employment overseas, I had to pay 400 pesos while 100 pesos foots the local clearance. Not wanting to have to go back in case I took the “wrong” certificate, I opted to settle the 400 bucks and got an official receipt.

Cashier: Where overseas are you going?
Me: India.
Cashier: (surprised and appalled) – What are you going to do there?!!
Me: Volunteer.
Cashier: (ruminating on the thought). Would you get compensated, like in a salary?
Me: No.
Cashier: (shaking her head) What a waste, you’re going abroad and you’re not going to earn.
She hands me out my change and receipt.
Cashier: Be careful of bumbays. They’re scary.

Uhm….. What the Eff???? Hey, that ain’t curry. Smells like bigotry to me.

Cut to: Back at the makati police district building

I’m lining up at window 2 and an annoying, noisy, beer-bellied man kept puttering about, shouting out that we don’t have to line up, just hand him our forms and conspicuous peso bills in between. Dubious enough that he kept repeating, “I’ll take care of you.” Thanks mister, but I can take care of myself. He also kept saying as he worked out the crowd, that window number three should have had been manned that day, and things would have been faster. Like anyone asked. Mister, who do you think you’re effiin’ here? Window number three was meant to be unattended precisely so that you can peddle your services around the crowd and earn “extra.”

My turn came at window number two. I slipped my forms and receipt and smiled at the man behind the glass window. he didn’t look at me. He ran his fingers on the forms, checked them, stamped them, and looked at them again. Then he put them down and without looking at me he said,

“Forty pesos.”

Aha.

So I say, “Sir, I already paid at the cashier.”

He didn’t look at me but just smiled and rested his eyes someplace else as if he was waiting for me to say something else. So I did and told him that he already had my receipt.

“It’s for the picture.”

Aha.

No friggin’ choice but to surrender forty pesos to the man growing horns at the sides of his head. He didn't give me a receipt. “Get your claim stub from window one. Have your picture taken over there. Fingerprint over there. Then come back on Wednesday.”

I’m holding a dirty piece of wood clap with my name written in chalk. “Okay, one, two, relax, smile.” Before I could even blink, flash bulbs blind me temporarily.

The Convivial Man With A Half Smile pressed my fingers one by one for the fingerprints. I just had to ask, and admittedly, to vent out by mocking the half-wits that your tax money pays for,

“Sir, what if I had one finger cut off, then my fingerprints won’t be complete?”
Man looked at me for a split second. “Then it won’t be complete.”
He had to answer. The man just had to answer such a stupid question.