Dec 16, 2010

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.

18 comments:

  1. The few government employees I had cause to interact with while in the Philippines may not have been the fastest people in the world, but they were friendly, helpful and efficient.

    This Duke Villanueva is a disgrace to your country, but he's not exactly special or unique. Think of the good police captain that thought he could get his job as a POLICE CAPTAIN back by using terroristic techniques (hostage situation). Think of the bungling idiots that were used to try to handle the situation.

    The Philippine government is packed with imbeciles that can barely sit at their desk without screwing something up, let alone pull off their duties successfully or with any flair or initiative. It's sad, but true, and this incident is merely a glaringly obvious example of a problem that needs to be addressed in all Philippines government positions.

    The Philippines will never progress as long as the people allow their government to be run by morons, and that's not even mentioning the corruption.

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  2. Too much red tape in PI... and the attitude of people who have the position in the government.
    Hopeless and very disappointing... very much frustrating.. who will ever listen to the complaints. Even the person who you are supposed to bring your complaint has a red tape in his head. oh.. lets escalate the complaint.. to whom?

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  3. the other guys with me came from places such as ilocos, isabella, etc. people who had to take a leave from work, shell out hundreds of pesos from their meager allowances/salaries just to pay for their fare, and who have no place to stay in manila. and they just told us to come back after 2 days, without any explanation. if i hadn't caused a scene there, nobody would explain to us what's happening, and nobody would do something about the problem.
    they were too busy singing christmas carols to care. they just got their bonus, 13th month pay, and pnoy's 7k allowance so they all wanted to be the best slackers in the entire philippine history.

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  4. Knowing Duke, who is one of the most level-headed and diplomatic people I know. You must have been acting out of control.

    I can imagine he was very busy, since he must have been thinking of going to his office and work out the problem rather than talk to a hysterical lady who was harassing DFA employees at the lobby.

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  5. Anonymous before you attack me, contemplate on what you said. it was not one hysterical lady but a group of annoyed filipinos who have been waiting all day. no i am not acting out of control, simply relaying a message conveyed by someone i know who happens to be a respected PHYSICIAN. its best you grow some balls before leaving another comment. leave a name instead.

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  6. hysterical. i pay the idiot's salary through my taxes only to be told that he doesn't care, he's busy. that gives me the right to be hysterical.

    level-headed. the idiot asked for a boxing match outside the office with another guy who's also pissed at him. and you call him level-headed.

    advise for you anonymous: you should see a shrink, or better yet, a neurologist. there's definitely something wrong with how your neurons fire off. you never know, you might just start experiencing seizures in the future.

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  7. Duke is one of the nicest people that I have ever met. I've known him for years, I've never seen him get mad for unjustifiable reasons. One thing that he despises the most is when people try to step on his toes. It is unfair to judge people right away without having the full account of the situation. Also, we need to realize that government employees are also made to pay taxes. Thinking that only private individuals shoulder the compensation given to public employees is nothing but a sign of pure ignorance.

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  8. Dear Mr Anonymous
    youre vouching for a friend and claims that he is near perfect and would never err on such a situation...oh please. its either you are giving him head or you are secretly in love with him. He isnt perfect. He cant even do his job. if you find it unfair for someone to judge him without having the full acocount of the situation then id say, back at you. YOure the one acting out of PURE IGNORANCE because first of all YOU WERENT THERE! you have no "full account of the situation" and yet here you are making a judgment of the people who witnessed what happened.

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  9. The passport division, serves more than 7,000 persons a day in Manila alone, and the great majority of the applicants now a days. You were just unfortunate to have applied at a time when there were passport delays due to the defaulting of our contractors on passport supplies. Dear owner of this blog, Ms. Asuncion Eusebio and Ma. Veronica Noya, please remove this silly blog post, as it is unfair to place my full name in this public forum. Did DFA release the CCTV video of you going hysterical? We did not. -Duke

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  10. And I'm sorry to say, if I can place my modesty aside to conratulate the hard working passport division, the majority of the general public commend DFA for the impovements in pass service me and my colleagues have initiated, despite logistical and budgetary challenges. So sorry Miss Asuncion Eusebio, I think we are doing just fine. =) -Duke

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  11. Instead of sincerely apologizing, you simply came up with more excuses to justify your rudeness and unprofessionalism Mr Villanueva. The DFA is doing good, but its people like you that tarnishes its image. Dont drag the whole cart of tomatoes into the picture when we are solely talking about the rotten one. I dare you then, release the video. YOure too arrogant to be in such a position. If you cant handle your job, im sure there are others more qualified and happy to do it for you.

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  12. Sorry, I know can handle my job well despite what you say, and most of all I will not stand the sight of my staff being harassed and verbally abused.

    Did you know from my office I could hear the hysterical doctor shouting?

    Please understand what the hysterical complaining doctor did was highly unprofessional also. The very precise reason there was no one there because of VERBALLY ABUSIVE doctor going hysterical in the lobby, who even went up to the THIRD FLOOR to shout at a the staff who were singing Christmas Carols.

    How dare you do that? What gives the hysterical doctor the right to shout and harass the employees?

    We are government employees, you think we are lazy and you pay for our taxes, but please don't shout at us like we are your slaves or we are dogs.

    Sorry, I cannot let my staff be abused verbally. Instead of allowing us to work on the problem, the hysterical doctor has to incite the whole crowd. That's why I came out personally to face the unruly personnel, because no one else would though I would have rather stayed in my office and worked on getting supplies to our passport printing site (at that time one of our contractors defaulted on their deliveries thus we had shortages of passport supplies).

    It was people like the hysterical doctor which were hampering our operations at the time and causing everyone just to feel worse.


    -Duke A. Villanueva

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  13. Arrogant. very arrogant man. if you have informed the people there that is the reason for the delay then it wouldnt have come to this right? instead here you are still ridiculing the people you pissed. Ms Noya is right, even PNoy wouldnt be as rude and condescending. Ive met him and he didnt tell us he is "busy".

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  14. release the video - unedited. these scenes should be there too:

    1. me approaching you and asking you in a nice way "excuse me sir, alam nyo po ba kung nasan yung in-charge dito sa information desk?" and you totally ignoring me and continuing walking like you didn't hear and see anything. then you coming back after 1 1/2 hours and sitting on that information desk.
    2. me asking you why are our passports delayed when it says in our appointment dates that it will be released that day and you answering "i don't care, i'm busy".
    3. you repeating "i don't care" several times, even saying it in tagalog for emphasis "WALA AKONG PAKIALAM".
    4. you daring that pinoy nurse from dublin to have a fistfight outside.
    5. you doing nothing when your security guys are dragging that pinoy nurse to bring him to the "security office". you only told them to let him go when i begged you to tell your security guys to let him go and to just release our passports

    i don't mind being seen on TV as the hysterical doctor. i'm not even denying it. :)
    but would it be alright for you to be seen on TV as that arrogant director of passport releasing section?

    oh, and by the way. a doctor came to DFA (happens to be a good friend of mine) the day after i caused a scene - she was told that doctors can already go to the courtesy lane! wow.

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  15. I once interacted with Mr. Duke villanueva and he's truly a gentleman and extremely kind. He helped me & my old Dad with our passports considering the busy day in his office. He didn't even give me his name to be known as the director. He just approached us & offered a help upon seeing my old Dad. At the end of the passport renewal procedure that we found out who he was through one of his employees. Before we put a GOOD MAN down, let's try to see ourselves first if we're really an ANGEL.. I can't believe a Doctor like you would overreact!! I guess breeding doesn't come with educational attainment or profession..

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  16. duke v is a person i know back in college. he is into martial arts and would challenge anyone into a duel if you dont get along with him. i didnt get along with him but he couldnt touch me at that time because of my affiliation with a fraternity. i cant believe he got this position at dfa. oh well uso naman ang palakasan sa gubyerno natin eh. im not surprised at his arrogance though. dati pang mayabang yan

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  17. Just had the same horrible experience with this guy! Pinakamayabang na tao na nakausap ko sa DFA! Pucha! Pa ingles ingles pa akala mo sino!? Sir, Pinoy tayo and mostly OFW ang kauaap nyo kaya pwede magtagalog! Malamang lang naman nakuha sa sipsip posisyon nya! He doesnt deserve that position, ang mga tao nya nakukuha ang ugali nya! Shit! DFA Sec Del Rosario! Please remove this guy! Pleasse... Here is his FB page, i urge you to send ur protests to him directly as well! https://www.facebook.com/duke.villanueva

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  18. Grabe tong tao na to! super power tripper talaga! Horrible experience sa DFA talaga ever!

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