GOVERNMENT offices and agencies are most of the time overrated, in the sense that we expect them to perform at a level not humanly possible because of the sheer weight of the workload.
I am neither condemning any official nor unduly praising any office, giving them any excuse to slack off. But any person who has anything to say about how government should be run should perhaps try to get employed in a government agency. Even if only for a point.
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Currently this writer is an intern at the Legal and Adjudication Division of the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board, Expanded National Capital Region Field Office, where dockets of cases seem to grow out and up from the tables.
The cases being decided there can be as “simple” as election contests in homeowners associations or who should collect dues. But things are a little more complicated than one would think.
People have a penchant for filing cases, especially in a country where the average drunk on the street is a Consitutional expert. Note, how, when there are rallies to unseat the present administarion (not just this particular administration), our average drunk is at the forefront shouting invectives and seething commentaries about the ineptitude of, say, the President of the Republic.
I wonder if any one of the many protesters I have seen both on the street and on T.V. really understand the bone of their fight. I wonder if they actually expect the President to micro-manage the affairs of the country, making sure a certain below-average family eats three times a day. I wonder if they have ever tried working in a government office or a government agency.
The sheer weight of the work is only one thing the office I intern in has to deal with. You think disposing a case is easy, even if it’s just a case of “simple” protests in a homeowners association election? There is no Solomonic solution to every problem. Especially if it involves people, who can think and reason, albeit sometimes wrongly or misguidedly. What more when the subject is land, or any other real property, which in this country is as precious as blood itself? People kill each other over that.
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Back home, I am besieged with questions regarding land, ours or others’. Usually I apologize because the facts are convoluted, and I would not want to issue any uncertain advice, as I take into consideration my lack of experience and exposure in the legal field. Sure, I have just come hot from the classroom, but in the real world, the rules are often broken to get to the ends.
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Not all people, sadly, can be as circumspective. They want the solution on their plates. And this attitude is sometimes fomented by so-called journalists (some radio broadcasters are the worst) who comment as if they are spewing dogmatic truth.
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I need a break before I bog down again.
