Daily thoughts - my friend's horrible experience at DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs)

To whom it may concern,

I want to share an incident that happened today at the DFA office.

After more than 2months of waiting (and going back and forth) to have my stolen passport replaced, i came back today as advised. I was told beforehand that the passport is scheduled to be released this morning.

Please understand that Im a Physician and Im very busy. I have to allot a day to run errands especially an important one like getting my passport.

I was at your office before 10am.

After I got there, I waited for 45 minutes, I was told to come back on Friday. So I went to the counter to ask why. I was told to go to the customer care so that they can address my concerns. So I did as told and when I got to the helpdesk, no one was manning the area. I also found 25 or so people complaining of the same thing. I asked the guard where the customer care people are. The guard responded that he doesnt know.

Obviously I was getting irritated at this point. If your office couldnt follow through with a schedule given, isnt it basic courtesy to at least let us know in advance?
I told the guard to tell whoever is in charge to show up and explain to us whats going on. After 1 and 1/2 agonizing hours finally one guy showed up. He was wearing a gray coat. I politely asked him, Excuse me sir, are you an employee here? He just looked at me and ignored me. Another guy came by and hestopped when I asked who was in charge. He said he will look for the staff.

After a while, someone finally showed up and sat at the helpdesk area. Guess who? It was the first guy I asked. The one wearing the gray coat, the one who ignored me. Naturally, I chewed him out. I said, Why did you ignore me while i was talking to you earlier? Why do we have to come back on Friday to collect our passport. His response? a very rude I DONT CARE IM BUSY.

I was truly shocked. After that long wait, here is the guy who is supposed to give us a better explanation of the delay of our passport and he tells me he doesnt care and that he is busy?!

I m sure even President Aquino would have said hello if I stopped to ask a question. Who is this guy anyway?
I found out his name is Duke Villanueva.

So I told him, that's not supposed to be an answer of a govt employee! I used to be a govt employee too, I've lost my temper a lot of times to but I've never told any of my patients na I don't care!

The other people waiting with me started to get upset and started reacting the same way I did. One even told him, "hey you have a nice shirt, i bet its our tax money used for that" (ang ganda ng polo mo a, galing sa tax namin yan!). Another guy argued with Mr Duke Villanueva and he was toldthat if he wants they can have a match outside of the office (suntukan daw!)! this was already beginning to get out of hand. Even the people with Mr Villanueva even wanted to get the guy inside their office for an "investigation". What kind of investigation are they talking about? If people get pissed because DFA cannot follow through with a schedule they gave themselves, is it the people's fault or problem?

What kind of service is this? What kind of Public servant is this Duke Villanueva?

This experience was very frustrating. Put yourself in our shoes. I was at the DFA from 10am till 4PM. If we did not freak out, we probably would ve been made to wait 2 more days and add more insult to injury.

We were able to finally get the passport within the same day, but this experience left a bad taste in our mouth.

I am forwarding this story also to my family and friends so that they can see what kind of people are being given this kind of position in the government.

And by the way, Mr Villanueva kept reiterating in tagalog, I DONT CARE.

Well im sure the Filipinos wouldnt want that kind of person assisting them at the DFA. He should put a button on his gray coat that says I DONT CARE so no one would bother him again. Or better yet, he should find another job where he doesnt have to deal with people at all.

He has no excuse to be rude to us. After all, it was not our idea to go back at your office today. It was a schedule set by DFA. He should have apologized and reassured us instead. To our shock and disbelief instead, he lambasted us with a rather rude remark that he IS BUSY AND HE DOESNT CARE/

I found out that his position gives him an edge or potential to be an ambassador in the future. Is this the kind of ambassador we will have, to represent our country and help our other OFW? What if a domestic helper asked for help because she was raped by an employer, what is he gonna say? Hindi pwedeng sagot ang I don't care!

Thank you for your time in reading my rather lengthy email. I do hope to hear from you and I wish that something can be done about this too.

Sincerely yours,

Ronnie

***incident happened today. my friend just sent a letter to the head of DFA shortly before i posted this online.