Musical chairs at DFA

DFA auditorium ceiling, via my mobile

Not the rigodon of officials, mind you. Just the passport renewal process.

Although it's nowhere near the Guinness World Record for musical chairs (8,238 people at the Anglo-Chinese school in Singapore), the Trip to Jerusalem for passport renewal at the Department of Foreign Affairs is still quite a huge one at around 260 people at any given time. These queues are what pocketbooks and FM radio on your mobile were made for.

Ideally, you'd have an LED display with the number of the next available counter, but the level of service being less than world-class, finding out who's free is determined by clapping. No joke. Am not even sure if this is any good for the deaf-mute staff. I propose an inexpensive Third World alternative: paddles. Raising up a numbered ping-pong racquet sounds more civilized to me.

Even with an appointment booked online, it still took 2 hours and 45 minutes from arrival at the Libertad entrance to paying for courier delivery. It took so long partly because we waited through lunch break, when operations were only 25% of the capacity. There were signs for the steps in the process, but they were not clear enough. At every turn, you had to locate the next queue.

If you earn more than P1,300 a day, consider the fast-track processing. It might be worth it.