Five years, copious amounts of money, many trip into Mega Manila, and I receive my big yellow ACR card with my picture on it back in 2001. I’m a self satisfied man, the stars are in the heavens were aligned and all in the world is well. Hell no, the next year they change to the “I” card and I start again!
All the paperworks are lost in Manila, so no card shows up in Olongapo. I go to Manila for two days and “I” found the paperwork’s they must by now think I work there and that they were never informed, or was I ever paid for that matter. Three months later my “I Card” falls from the Manila sky, and it’s good for only one year.
After paying my head tax at the Olongapo Office in 2007, they sit me in front of the computer fill out all the info and take my picture for a new “I Card”, and inform me for an extra 500.00 Pesos they will expedite my application, what the heck, I’ll go for that. After all this new “I Card” is now good for five years.
It’s been two years so far and I still don’t have the card. They think it was sent to another office somewhere here in the Philippines or other parts of Asia, or Europe for all I know.
I asked if I could get my 500.00 Pesos refunded, since if was not expedited very well? Well, that set them into a panic, in the history of this country, a refund has never been asked for before, or received, I calmed them down and asked what could be done, the answer made sense, just wait until the card, I don’t have, expires and apply for a new one! You can’t makeup stuff like this!
Ok, I’m not going anywhere but am I legal? Well it happens that my receipt is legal and binding; you just can’t show it at the airport. So I’ll “just wait” three years and start again, but next time, I won’t pay the 500.00 Pesos extra, that’ll show em’.
Chose to live here? Sounds like without the card I have lost that choice.
Addendum:
March 2009 again while paying my yearly head tax, the “I-card” had arrived in Olongapo City, oh happy days! It was in the office manager’s desk all the time, it was not lost.
Aw, you just forgot to pay the “Manager’s Super Express” fee, that’s all! Haw haw haw! 😆
Let’s see: Refund. That comes after Rebate, and before Return Credit. No “R’s” in the fiscal manuals here. (As you know, it’s made up for in the “T’s” for “taxes” and “F’s” for “fees”!)
Paul T. – Yearly head tax??? Please tell me what else I must pay.
Hi, Paul- I haven’t heard other expats from the northernmost reaches of Yami to the southernmost reaches of Saluag Island going through this annual keystone kops comedy of errors you’re experiencing, so is it safe to conclude that maybe, just maybe, the problem is exclusive to your Olongapo office? 🙂 Maybe that office needs a shakedown!
I heard of a similar story not long ago about a billion-dollar lawsuit against Pepsico that they lost by default for not appearing in court because the secretary in the legal department failed to notify Pepsico officials about the lawsuit. Why? She was too busy preparing for a meeting…
Hi John;
It could be that or somethin’ else.
Bingo! There you, go, Paul. That “somethin’ else” in the vernacular is called, “palagay”. 🙂