PhilFAQS

I just got up from my after-lunch nap.  Seems as if I am short of sleep, I’m a little cranky and out of sorts.  Could be I have caught a cold bug or something like that, but one reason I am tired has to be that today I went out and paid four bills … our monthly electric bill, our BDO Visa credit card, our wireless DSL Internet bill and the cable TV bill.  No big thing, really, but everything involving paying bills and keeping your account current seems to be twice … or even three or four times as hard .. as doing the same thing in the US.

Normally, paying bills is nothing but a quick little task to get out of the way and move on to pleasanter things … as long as you have the money to pay the bills … what could the problem be?  Well there are several things which make bill paying much less enjoyable here, and the main one is … it’s damn hard just to get your bills!

Since I was a little boy … that would have been a couple years after Wells Fargo stage coaches stopped being a primary source of mail transport … people have enjoyed nothing more than (as Randy says, “Talking Smack”) about the US Postal Service.

WHAT!?  The cost of a stamp is now $0.42 cents?  WHAT!?, It takes three days or even 5 days to get a letter from New York to California?  OMG!, you will not believe the lines at the post office around Christmas time mailing packages … I’m sure you have a few other choice “moans” you can add yourself.

Fellow Americans?  You don’t know what a privilege and convenience it is just to be able to be able to put a stamp on an envelope and expect it to be delivered.  You really don’t know how useful it is to have a place you can go to and stand in line, where even as the pace seems slow, at the end of the wait a competent clerk will take your package, charge you a few bucks and get it to the destination in reasonable time … you can even pay a few cents more and be able to track your package from your computer or cell phone.  Next time the USPS does something which upsets you, or asks congress for another 2 cent increase in First Class postage, remember this … you’ll never, ever have a problem like that in the Philippines … because for practical purposes, there just is no postal system here.  You just never know how good you have it sometimes, until you have to deal with life without it.

Technically, there is a Philippines Postal Service.  Here’s their web site and they do offer many services similar to the US postal system, at least for International mail.  Heck, our good friend Bob used to run a business using PhilPost to send his “sold” items to the US for delivery.  So they can’t be all bad.  But from my experience, frankly, you can just forget about them.

In just a few weeks we will have lived here at this same address, almost within site of Metro Manila, for two full years.  The PhilPost delivery man has been to our house exactly four times in two years.  One of those times was to deliver a notification that I had a parcel waiting at the local post office and that if I had a properly issued and paid for government postal ID I could go an pick it up .. “We don’t deliver packages to the home.”  I don’t have a postal ID, but luckily my father-in-law does, so I went and fetched daddy and the two of us drove to the little hovel in nearby Marilao that serves as our local post office.  You can tell where it is because in front of it are the only unoccupied parking spaces on the whole block … they are u8noccupied because in front of the post office are signs in the street that say, Post office, No parking.  I guess the spaces are reserved n case the presidential helicopter wants to land there, but customers need to find their own solutions.  (I did get the package, by the way).

But think about those average of 2 visits per year by the mailman.  That means you might as well forget about being able to get your bills by mail.  I must be a real Hell on earth to run a business here with monthly billing … there is no way to get bills into the hands of customers on time … some customers can be ‘trained” like I am, to just pay without a bill … which leads to things like three months difference between my records and the cable company’s.  Hopefully, it’ll catch up by November, else I’ll have to deal with that before I pay the next bill there, too.

Other people for sure are just not going to pay until they get a bill, so the business owner can either cut them off and lose their business forever, or ‘carry’ them along on credit and hope he can get his own suppliers to carry him.

Enough bitching … but Dave’s mental attitude aside, this is a huge problem for the Philippines.  It stifles the economy and makes life very difficult for the average “Joe” and “Juan” just to do the simple tings in life like keep the lights turned on.

I want to send out a great big thank you to the fellows and gals at the Galley Road station, 80915 and to every other member of the US Postal Service who has done so much to help me over the years.  If you get mail through the USPS, run outside the next time your carrier comes by and give him a big hug … or a cup of coffee and a thank you, because if you move here you’re going to miss him or her.  Trust me, you will.

Related posts:

1. Some Things Americans Will Not Miss in the Philippines
2. More Nonesense Americans Won’t Miss in the Philippines
3. More Ugly (non) Americans
4. How To Make Millions In The Philippines
5. Questions, Questions, Questions 6

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