Getting a national ID

Last July this year, our village was lucky because the barangay captain choose it as a location for a 1 day national id registration. A day before the actual registration, the officials of the housing association posted on official facebook page of our village that she is going to give out queue numbers to the homeowners at exactly 7 in the morning. In the next morning, I prepared myself, wore a white tshirt as required by the officers and proceeded to the clubhouse to get a queue number. When I got there, I see a lot of people lining up, unfortunately there wasn’t available number anymore as they have given it already as early as 5 am. They only alloted 500 numbers as this was only the number of people the PSA staffs can accommodate in one day. A lot of people complained about it including me, because they posted that the queue numbers will be distributed at 7 am but then they’ve given it earlier. So to make us calm down, they announced that they will give another queue numbers in the afternoon at 3 pm.

When I got home, I messaged my neighbor and she told me she wasn’t able to get a queue number as well, so both of us decided to went back at the clubhouse in the afternoon. Luckily both us got a number when they distributed it in the afternoon. They only added 50 more people to be accomodated on the same day together with the first 500 people. Grace and I along with the other people in the clubhouse waited for our turn. We stayed there for hours waiting for our number to be called. So while waiting we just spend the rest of the afternoon talking about anything and everything. I didn’t have to worry about my kids because the location of the registration was just a few steps away from our house. At exactly 5:30 pm, we were finally at the last step of the whole procedure. And before the clock strike at 6 I already got the proof that I successfully registered for a national ID. I just needed to wait for a few months before I can actually get the ID which will be mailed in my home address.

I guess the reason why it took us that long because it was the first day. So everyone in the neighbourhood simultaneously went at the same time to register. My mistake because I thought it would only be for a day. On the following weeks, they held another registration process and a friend of mine from the other village registered here, she told me that it was a quick one. Now next month, they are going to have another registration prioritizing the kids ages 5 to 12 years old. I was happy to know about it because I’d like my kids to be registered too.

Last Wednesday afternoon, Grace my neighbor, message me that there is another national registration at the nearby village which includes the kids too. She told me that she is done with the registration of her three kids. I mentioned to her about the registration in our village but she told me that maybe a lot of kids will be there along with their parents. I perfectly got her point, so yesterday I took my kids to the nearby village. I brought their birth certificates and passports for ID validation.

It was indeed a very quick one. We went there by 3 pm and we finished the whole process at exactly 320 pm. Seriously that only took us 20 minutes very unlikely to what I’ve had experienced. Lucky us because when we got at the location there was only two people ahead of us and after them my kids were next. My kids have now successfully done with the registration and just like me, we’re gonna wait for the national id to be mailed into our home address. When? Well I don’t know. I registered last July but up until now I am still waiting for it. I hope they can send it soon.

Final Thoughts

Getting a national id has a lot of benefits. Actually our country was way left behind about getting one. But getting late is better than not having one at all. This could help our countrymen in getting benefits from the government in the near future. In this way there would be a fair contribution to everyone and avoid the anomaly in the government and hopefully it will lessen the corruption too. Oh we can only hope. So for my fellow Filipinos readers, have you registered already?

Lead image source

The rest of images used were mine.