or how I got my NBI clearance. Haha. Don't worry, I'm not going to rant, compared to the many blogs I've read regarding the authors' experiences in getting their clearance, mine was a breeze. Yes, it still involved waking up in the early hours of the morning, but not the part where you stand in line for hours on end.
The NBI clearance is a requirement both in employment and in travel abroad. On June 30, 2011, the contract between NBI and Mega Data, the supplier that had been providing the machines since the 1970's (I think), expired. Then, from what I've read (assuming it's true), they weren't included in the bidding, so the new contract went to a different company. So on the first of July, Mega Data pulled out all of their machines, and everyone went back to square one, new applications. No more renewals for us. I neither know, nor would I understand the politics that resulted in those circumstances; and I don't know why the NBI does not seem to have ownership of the data. All I know is, Mega Data had made the process for renewals (and even new applications) super easy and convenient by initiating several improvements and opening a lot of renewal kiosks, but in July, all renewal kiosks were closed, and the number of satellite offices decreased, which resulted in a process that is long, stressful and inefficient. Bad for us, especially those who support their families and can't start working until the clearance comes through.
Back to my experience. Keeping all those rants in mind, we went to the satellite office in Mandaluyong City Hall at 5:00 this morning, and discovered that there were, like, 250+ people already in line before us. Since they have a 500-person cut-off, we didn't mind. Around 15 minutes later, they made us move to the 2nd floor parking area, where the lines got confusing, but fortunately, they were fixed without incident. When the line was back in order, a guy went around giving us application forms, commanding everyone to sign the forms before anything else. Apparently, there are some people who line up and get forms, then sell them to applicants who arrive late. Ugh. Since the actual office opens at 8:00 am and there were so many people, we decided to go home first and return later in the afternoon. I actually went to school (in QC) and met my classes first. We came back at around 3 pm; by that time, it seemed that the hordes of people we were with earlier were already finished. We went straight to payment, then to encoding, waited around 15 minutes for biometrics, then 5 minutes for releasing, since I had no hits. My brother has a hit though, he was instructed to come back on Feb. 29. So there you have it, we still needed to wake up super early, but that's better than waiting in line for 5-10 hours or cheating and shelling out money unnecessarily to pay 'fixers'. I also learned that not all the people who work in the City Hall are rude, most of them were actually quite nice. (The actual employees, not those epal people there who seem to have nothing to do with their time).
Oh, and if you're wondering why I went back 3 times, I was worried I might not get processed today and Saturday services are exclusive to Mandaluyong residents, so I went back and processed my cedula before going to school. Just to be sure. To all you guys who'll be processing your NBI clearance, good luck. :-)
1 comment:
yey may nbi ka na..:)
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