To that Filipino staff of the Korean embassy who held back the release of my passport and visa for whatever reason and required me to appear personally to claim it: admit it, you’re an H2 fan, aren’t you?

Koreans usually say that they aged 10 years whenever they’re put into shock or become severely stressed over nothing. I think I aged 20 years today. I almost didn’t make it to the allotted time for releasing of visas at the embassy because I had to report to my office and secure an affidavit from two disinterested persons stating that the names appearing on my passport and my supporting documents are one and the same person. Said affidavit cost me php150 bucks. I left the office around lunchtime, estimating that I’ll be at the embassy by 2:30pm (releasing time is from 2:00-4:00pm). For some reason, it was so difficult to commute this afternoon: very few PUJs available, the FX took a long time before it got filled up, and there was a throng of people at the MRT that they had to limit the entry to the station by batches. Long story short, I reached the embassy at exactly 3:42pm. Chie has been waiting for me at the lobby of Pacific Star Building and had thankfully already secured a visitor’s pass, so that saved us a couple of minutes. When we reached the embassy, there was no line at Window 3 but first I had to explain to the information desk what my case was. They just told me to go straight to Window 3 as allegedly told by the embassy staff to our representative last Friday. So straight to Window 3 I went, toting my affidavit and my office ID just in case they ask for it.

Unlike last Friday, a Korean lady was manning the window today. I told her that I’m there to claim my passport and naturally, she asked for the claim stub. Naturally, I said that I don’t have one because according to my representative who claimed our visas last Friday, it was not returned to him. The Korean lady said, no claim stub, no passport. What?! I tried explaining the situation to her, which was not an easy task because my brain was still on the process of converting to English mode and it’s not converting fast enough. The Korean lady insisted that there is no way that the claim stub was not returned to the representative because the procedure is, we give them the stub, they hand over the passport. She said it’s not possible that the embassy staff took the stub without giving something in return. I was on the verge of tears right there and then, but the Korean was insistent so I decided to just let her be as the last person I would want to piss off at that point was an employee of the embassy I’m securing a visa from.

I called our travel companion Jean as it was her staff who claimed the passports last Friday and told her what happened. She hung up to call her staff to clarify (unfortunately, said staff is in the province so he pretty much can’t do anything at that point, either). Meanwhile, Chie and I asked the information desk for assistance and they said the best we can just do is to go back to Window 3 and explain my case further. We both figured that it won’t make sense for the Korean embassy to hold my passport hostage just because I don’t have a claim stub, right? After all, I’m the owner of that passport. Jean called back and said that according to her staff, the Filipino who released the passports last Friday really did not return any claim stub to him.

So I went back to Window 3 - at that point, it’s already a few minutes after 4:00pm - and spoke to the Korean lady again. I repeated the situation to her and she still doesn’t want to give in. I told her, it’s my passport, anyway, so why can’t they release it to me? She said it doesn’t matter, no claim stub, no release. She then asked me what was the reason why I was asked to appear at the embassy. I told her what the Filipino staff told the rep, that is, she can’t release my passport because I have to appear at the embassy personally. The Korean lady was taken aback and said they don’t require personal appearance at the embassy anymore. Eh? What the hell?! She paused for a bit, then maybe she realized the absurdity of keeping my passport just because of a missing claim stub, so she asked me what’s my name. I gave her my ID, she looked at it, reached for something at her desk, flashed my passport at me and said, “is this you??” Aish. Un-fuckin’-believable. She muttered something about not understanding why my passport was not released, then she asked me to photocopy the front page of my passport (and cost me another php8.50 - ang mahal ng pa-photocopy nila, ha!), gave me a blank claim stub and told me to just write down on the blank part that my agency has lost my claim stub so I had to claim my passport personally. After all that, FINALLY, I got my passport. I quick flip through the pages showed that it has a visa. Whew!

So yeah, up to this very moment, the mystery of why my passport was held back remain unsolved. Because a certain Filipino staff at the Korean embassy is trippin’ on something, I was severely inconvenienced. Isn’t it tragic that the more considerate person at the Korean embassy in the Philippines is the Korean and not the Filipino?

It’s a good thing that Chie was gracious enough to keep me company at the embassy even if she doesn’t have to. I was close to panicking, but I was able to maintain my composure because she was there. Although I know that deep inside she’s also panicking as were my other friends. But all’s well that ends well. Lesson’s learned: (1) submit the application as early as possible; (2) go to the embassy as early as possible; (3) even if they said that personal appearance is not required, it is still more advisable to claim your passport/visa personally.

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 9:38 pm and is filed under My So-Called Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.