Friday, October 10, 2008

NBI Eeewscapade

I got another doze of NBI phenomenon. Really, the place was very chaotic!

Last Monday was a holiday for us because we had it swapped with the official holiday last October 1. Olga and I went to NBI located in Carriedo. I woke up early of course so everything will be done just within the day.

We got to "the place" at around 9:30 A.M. on board the MRT. I have been to the place once like it was year 2004 so I was trying to recall where exactly NBI is when we got off the train. The one thing I could remember was, it was at the right side corner with a long alley packed with all sorts of people selling dry goods and it's noisy. Heck I am right the markers were still there. Nothing had changed I guess. By the way, NBI stands for National Bureau of Investigation. Anyway Olga and I managed to locate the entrance of the NBI building. The facade was still crowded and dilapidated, but not much because it was still livable. What caught our attention was lots of people there were selling pirated DVDs, CDs, probably electronics like phones, digital cameras and the likes were rampantly being sold. Take note there's a police station nearby the NBI building. Piracy was everywhere and it's a slap to these officials who should be maintaining fair competition. I knew then why piracy hasn't been cracked down. Well, we got to the building and it was on the third floor but before you could get there, you'll have to pass by in a maze. The place was a big maze with those markers - cartolinas where arrows being drawn as to where the right directions were. There was a queue at the entrance so we jumped on the line and paid 20 pesos. When I got the ticket, I just smiled and laughed at the back of my head as it was something like not related to NBI. Well to my surprise it was sort of a ticket for a mall which I don't have any single clue as to what it was about. Then we just proceeded to the office and noticed that the guards were checking the tickets. Then we got a form and the one person assigned there also checked the ticket. After we filled out the form we paid of course and proceeded to the next step. The place was packed with lots of people with different facial expressions - some were grouchy, others looked like they were lost and some were looking just odd. I guess it's because of the place. I failed to tell you that aside from it being crowded, it was hot and not well lighted and freakingly noisy. What can you expect of a public place? Olga and I went ahead for the checking of the forms like there was another queque where they will check if you have filled the correct information on your form. The line was a kilometer's long. It took us around 45 minutes before we get our turns. After that, we proceeded to another line where they check your police or criminal records which was termed as "hit". It was already 12 noon and were were hungry. When we got to the line we noticed that we were moving fast unlike the other three lines. It was a stupid mistake! We lined up ourselves to some never endling line because it was a circular thing. That's why it moved too fast without ever reaching the goal of checking your records. We broke from the line and went to the right queue. Of course there were those who continued to form their own separate queues joining the circular queue. Amazing the whole computer science thing just happened with people at NBI. Olga and I just laugh it out and remarked if it's okay to collapse. Olga told me she would want to collapse so she could be entertained and get to the line first. I refute that she won't because she will have to be brought to the hospital so she will be dead last. Hehehehe. Anyway, we waited again for another hour before we were actually served. We were so hungry and I felt so irritated already. To no surprise, when it was our turn to be checked, we were hit. Darn! It's this DOST scholarship again. Anyway I had my clearance from DOST already so it should not be a problem as well as Olga. Olga and I decided to just not take our lunch and continue to have our faces digitally captured. The queue there was fast and thank God it took us like 5 minutes to wait. So we proceeded to the next step where they had to get our finger prints like all of our fingers. What about if you have like eleven or twelve fingers? How would they do that? Boxes were available for ten so maybe one or two extra fingers will be exceptions. Anyway, the finger printing was also fast as there were lots of officers assigned on that section. After that, we had to submit our forms to be scheduled for the release of our NBI clearance. Olga's schedule was different with mine and so I proposed that she come with me on my schedule and she agreed gladly. I will have a separate blog as to what happened to my second NBI encounter. Well, we decided to just go home and take another Manila tour with MRT.

After what happened, I swore not to set foot on that place but do I have a choice? I need to get there again for the releasing of my clearance. Well NBI Cebu was way better in lots of aspects. So good luck to me for the next trip.

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