Some people have perfected the art of compromise. They bow down to authority, no matter how ridiculous the situation is.
The effect of compromise is peace. No conflict, no riot, no war.
I would like to think that I need to know the art very well in order to get by in this world. Unfortunately, I really get very agitated when I know that I should not compromise in a situation. And so when I write my critiques, I really take care to say what I want to say without mentioning names directly.
What are the instances when I did not compromise?
1. I asked the office of the VP for administration of an institution as to what the telephone number of a section is. The person on the line told me that she did not know and that I should call up the operator instead.
So what is the manner of compromising in this instance? To do as she had told me. Right? Wrong. I should not compromise at all and so I told her what was thinking at the time. "Madam, you are in the office for administration and you don't know that section? That is what you call bureaucratism." Actually bureaucratism is a disease in government that afflicts many government employees.
These people like passing the buck. -- they evade responsibility and so they shift the burden to some other individual or institution, whatever the case may be.
2. I asked a department in charge of community affairs whether a dorm accepts alumni as overnight sleepers. "That;s not our concern here. You may call the office of student affairs."
I think that community affairs should rename itself because it has a very limited definition of community.
3. Another time, I complained about the low number of public jeepneys available at night at UP. at the office of the chancellor. The person in the other line told me to contact the community affairs.
Folks, my load for calling PLDT line in my celfone goes kaput over the bureaucratic mazes that I go through, contacting one office after another just to make suggestions or to ask information.
I am not able to get an answer right away but have to call up one number after another, repeat my story, etcetera, etcetera. What about our low-budgeted Kababayan who cannot afford to spend so much for phone calls? Worse yet, my celfone cannot connect with Bayantel numbers.
4. I looked for Mood Learning at the UP the other day. The VP for Administration didn't know where it is. Then I went to the Engineering complex, where I have been told earlier where it was. From one building to another, I walked, and you know how many steps each building is away from each other? About a hundred steps. I went to three different buildings before I was able to find the office, after a guard told me where it was.
It would have been a good exercise for the legs except that a fat man with a big belly was there at the entrance blowing his cigarette smoke away in great abandon.
That guy probably is clueless about the ills of smoking or he had done it in purpose.
I think there should be a rule in government: a caller should not be told to make another call but that the office who has received the call must make an effort to find out about the information and give the proper answer.
That is the purpose of 8888, by the way. Initially sometime during the first quarter when I discovered 8888, my comlaints were addressed very readily. But right now, I am being told to transfer my complaint to another institution -- especially this aspect of my grievance over the daily intrusions into my residence by secret agents of the PNP.
I complained last June -- the barangay who told me to go directly to the Galas Police Station. I did. The following day, the police and the barangay tanod came to inspect my place and knocked on the door of the people whom I have suspected of being the culprits.
After that, nothing, nothing has been done.
Not even the president of our association can solve it. She is thinking I would be imagining such things, whereas I had brought the evidences to the barangay alread.
Yesterday, I received my water bill, P100 highter than my neighbor who also lives alone like me, but even has occasional relatives popping in once in a while.
Why should my bill be higher when I don't do the full laundry? (Folks, one day I smelled something different in my residence; which I deduced to have been caused by a stranger again. Last July 19, I woke up and found a brown cat inside my unit and which readily escaped through the window which I had covered very well with my boxes of books. The cat is owned by a lawyer who lives on the same floor as I do. I don't really know why he allows his cat to wander around just like that and to negotiate itself through the piles ot carton boxes on my window.)
Maybe it would take a generation or two before authorities in our country would be able to respect the privacy of critics.
Silencing critics is telling us in our society that these authorities do not need suggestions nor need not change their ill behavior. What do you call that?
drawing adapted from Don Barletta +Latuff (critters crap)
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