OPINION: Gov’t agencies force Filipinos to line up as early as 5 AM for basic services

Citizens don’t deserve to spend an entire morning navigating a maze just to access government services.

Government bureaucracy is going too far by turning many simple transactions into an endurance test.

Need to update your SSS information or acquire a Pag-IBIG Loyalty Card? You may still find yourself heading to a physical branch, filling out forms, lining up for hours, and waiting for your number to be called for something that could reasonably be done online.

Yet even then, there is no guarantee that you will get what you lined up so early for.

You arrive at 5 AM because some government offices have strict cutoffs. You surrender your ID and provide your personal information just to get a routing number.

You and dozens of other Filipinos line up at intake, move to processing, then go somewhere else for releasing. The cashier is often at another window, supposedly because separating these steps helps prevent fraud and corruption.

Before you know it, one transaction has become six or seven separate steps.

Government offices even need helpdesks to explain the process because the process itself is so confusing. And sometimes, that helpdesk becomes another stop in the transaction.

This is what happens when bureaucracy is designed around controlling every step instead of making the citizen’s experience as simple as possible.

The irony is that the Philippines has spent years talking about digital transformation, yet people are still asked for physical forms, handwritten information, and photocopies of documents they have already submitted to the government in the past.

Some government websites remain difficult to navigate, poorly maintained, or seemingly designed as digital bulletin boards rather than functional service platforms.

And when something goes wrong, the solution can be as absurd as being told to return another day because of a missing signature, misplaced punctuation, or some other tiny technicality.

This simply cannot be easy for the majority of working Filipinos who have already allocated time and filed leave for the supposed transaction, especially when government offices are closed on weekends in the first place.

Government exists to provide services. Citizens should not have to spend an entire morning navigating a maze just to access them.

The technology exists, but the government still struggles to redesign even common transactions in ways that do not involve wasting Filipinos’ time.

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