If you want to see government incompetence in action (or inaction), you only have to go to our aiports. We have three of them. Pick any one.

It used to be that Terminal 3 was the most hassle-free among all our airports. Today, at the most, I expected a long queue at the X-ray machines. Surprisingly, there were no queues. No traffic, and no queue. I knew it was too good to be true.

The queues were at the travel tax section. Yep, that’s right. Travel tax.

And that’s queue with an S. Plural. Because, after queuing at Step 1 – because paying your taxes isn’t cut and dried – then you have to queue at Step 2. I was baffled. Step 1 is where they issue you a slip of paper with “authority to receive payment” stamped on it. You have to present this to the people over at Step 2, which is one cubicle away, where someone will then your money and then issue you an official receipt. It’s a complex process. All of which, today, took ONE HOUR.

The Cebu Pacific personnel had to go to the queue and fish out passengers for flights whose check-in counters were closing.

When I complained to the travel tax personnel, they said that there were just too many people because of the Easter holiday. Er, hmmm… There was no traffic, no queues at the X-ray machine. I had seen the airport busier than this. And even if the airport was busier than normal, how hard can it be to collect travel tax? Really?

I mean, it’s pretty much the same tax for everyone, no? The variables are the names on the slip and the flight numbers. how long does it take to fill that out?

Geezoos.

Last year,

where someone issues you a paper that says “authority to recieve payment”, and then you queue up again for step 2I hadn’t been to NAIA Terminal 1 in quite some time, until my last two trips, and it really, truly is a godawful airport. It most definitely deserves the “worst airport in the world” title.

It always shocks me how disorgnaized they are at our airports. As if they were caught unaware by a sudden mad rush. Seriously! Don’t they encounter these things everyday? For the past ten billion years? You’d think they’d have things figured out by now.

Take, for instance, that early morning that I wa trying to catch a flight to Singapore. Just GETTING INTO the airport was a nightmare. I queued at one entrance, until a guard pointed me to the one farther away. “Only men in this line.” Was I entering an airport or a mosque?

Except that the other line was much longer and had men in it that refused to budge because, well, I suppose they just thought the whole thing too absurd.

See, you have to wonder what bird-brain came up with this policy. Take your average couple, for example. It’s most likely that it’s the missus who has packed the bags and she probably has all the passports and the keys to the bags too. The only thing her husband has to do is to carry the damned bags. When she’s told to go to the other line, in their confusion, of course the bags stay with the husband. There’s no way she’s going to carry them. What happens then when he is questioned about the contents?

“What’s this strange-looking thing in here, sir?”

“I have no idea. My wife packed our bags.”

“Please open the bag, sir.”

“Oh, she has the keys.”

Now what happens when it’s a family traveling together or a whole group? Can you imagine the chaos?

Of course this whole segragation of the sexes is happening because they only have one guy and one gal to pat down passengers. And they have two entrances so they’ve split them up and the guy can’t very well go on and pat down women passengers and the gal certainly can’t be manhandling manly bits.

You’d think it would occur to someone that maybe, JUST MAYBE they should perhaps hire another man and another woman so that they’d have a pair at each entrance?

I mean if they could hire FIVE people to collect travel taxes – they’re obviously big on job creation – surely they could hire two more person-patters or whatever they’re called.

And did you notice how everyone who asks for your passport is suddenly transformed into an Immigration Official? They actually ask more questions than the real immigration officials.

Take that same early morning flight at NAIA 1. There was a guy stationed at the beginning of the queue leading to the check-in counters. He asked for my passport. “Are you working?” “How long will you be gone?”, etc. etc. when all he really had to do was check if I had paid my travel tax and, if I hadn’t, to instruct me to go to the travel tax counter and pay before checking in.

FOR FUCK’S SAKE. It’s four in the freakin’ morning and I am not in the mood for shit.

I go to the said counter. “Your passport please, ma’am-sir.” I let that go.

“Meron ka nang green card?” she asks me, ever so casually. Like we were girlfriends catching up. For those who don’t understand Tagalog, that means, “Do you already have a green card?”

What? Excuse me? I’m sorry but did I ask for proof of your stupidity? No, I don’t think so, so please keep it to yourself. No, I didn’t say that out loud but, okay, at four in the morning, I can take a “Hello! How are you this morning?” I’ll even take the mam-sers but “Do I have a green card already?” What the hell kind of question is that?!

“I’m going to Singapore, why would I need a green card?”

“Ay!” She was taken aback by my brusqueness then she muttered something under her breath about going to the States that I didn’t care to listen to.

On hindsight, I should have shouted, “Bravo”. Really. After all, it was a very impressive display of how she could hold on to a job despite the obvious lack of a brain.

Yes, I can bitch that early in the morning, but I wasn’t. Aware that I had been a bit rude, I forced a smile at her and the five other people assigned to collect my travel tax and went on my way.

Back to passport handler no. 1 who wisely just waived me over to the check-in counter.

The people over at the Centennial Airport are even worse! The ones who took the worst airport survey had obviously not been to the Centennial Airport. The place is a palengke. I have to use the Pinoy word for “market” because it sounds more like what it is. A PALANGKE.

There are queues everywhere. Are the people in charge here so used to their incompitence that it is normal for them to have queues everywhere?

And the last guy/gal you have to show your passport to, the one in the booth right before boarding – ohmygod, could someone please promote them to immigration official already. They so obviously wants the part. The immigration official barely asked me anything, these guys will ask for a stool sample if they could. Drives me insane! And all they really have to do is check my passport against my boarding pass.

And I don’t get what’s up with that. In all airports around the world. Take the Doha airport. Obviously, we had to show our passport and boarding pass to get into the airport. That’s understandable. I can also understand having to show the passport and boarding pass at the boarding gate. But from the boarding gate to the escalator then from the escalator to the exit to the bus – that’s three times in the space of – what? – a minute? I don’t get it.