A middle finger (at your service)

When I was 12, I got my first-ever cell phone. It was the Nokia 6150 — a little blue brick with a short, fat antenna that never ran low on battery and survived well after my friend Helena dropped hers into an eight-foot-deep pool. My service provider at the time — let’s call it “Earth” — has since been the same. Many people, including myself, have complained about its inefficiency and the intermittent bouts of real, actual service. Its lead competitor — which we’ll call “Genius” — doesn’t seem much better, and so I’ve never found myself in a position where I’m pressed to switch providers.

Now, I don’t want to pull you into the saga of my signal-less existence, but it really baffles me how a company pulling in billions within the first quarter of the year alone can be so content providing subpar (if at all) “service.” They throw these promos at you to disarm you and minimize your spending, but what good is reducing my data expense to P599 a month if I never get the connection in the first place? What good is calling yourself a telecommunications provider if I can’t make calls out and if the calls being made to me don’t come through? If you can’t provide the most basic of the services required as a cellular service provider, you have no business accepting over P8 billion in revenue every three months.

However, the top competing telecommunications companies are honestly the mere tip of the iceberg. A certain airline (let’s call her “Queen of the South Express”) is a local budget airline that is notorious for its lackluster services. They’ve lost luggage, they’ve rerouted flights over to Clark before landing in Manila without notice or explanation to the passengers, they do not provide apologies/refreshments/refunds/stipends in the event of major delays that result in next-day flights. The food they carry onboard, which is available on a cash basis and not included in the ticket price, is of a limited amount — less than enough to serve everyone onboard. This not only means that they cannot feed every single passenger who is hungry, but if the plane is delayed and it happens to be full of diabetics, old people, children, those with severe medical conditions and generally anyone who needs to be fed by a certain time, all they really have to offer are prayers and apologies.

Proudly Filipino?

What is truly embarrassing about this is not just that these companies get away with literally terrible service, but that they proudly stamp the word “Filipino” all over their copy. For the longest time, we have boasted the positive characteristics of the Filipino — we are kind, generous, joyful, sensitive. We love music and we love food. We are able to smile and laugh in the face of adversity. We know hospitality unlike any other nation in the world. We do small things with great love, and that’s why so many of our people find success in nations where warmth is not currency. So many foreign employers talk about Filipinos being valuable hires because Filipinos are willing to step out of their job description and go the extra mile if it means getting the work done.

So why is it that here, back home, we have such difficulty providing the same level of service for our fellow Filipinos? Last month’s APEC summit was a shining example of how this country tends to be kinder to its houseguests than to its actual tenants. For an event that was given five years to plan and account for logistics, the ripple effect onto the citizens was devastating. Repairs were made and rushed so close to the actual summit that the work interfered with the already terrible traffic. Over 1,300 flights coming from and going to Manila were canceled at the last minute, resulting in a serious dent in tourism and local business. APEC lanes were instated in already narrow thoroughfares, so delegates could easily rush through while so many people were stuck in traffic for eight hours or more.

There are people who will say that we Filipinos love to do nothing more than complain, and I will be the first to say that, of course, change does not come if we do not participate and make an effort to help it along. Sitting and ranting for days does nothing. However, it is also entirely wrong to stand by and watch while these companies act like mass ATM skimmers, charging for profit without delivering their end of the bargain. It is unethical and it is downright cruel, especially with the economic state that our country is in, with everything becoming more expensive and with people not earning any more to compensate for that gap in expenses versus salary.

Legal obligation

In any part of the world, if you pay for a service, the company is under legal obligation to provide it in the manner so promised. So, whether it’s cell phone service or the taxes you paid for road repairs and better traffic schemes (that were instated when the houseguests came to town), we deserve to get what we pay for. And the truly frustrating thing is that there is so much red tape that surrounds all of these things, it becomes more and more difficult to regulate. Thus we are left in the state we always seem to be left in, whether it’s networks or presidentiables: without any real, solid choices and the guarantee of a reliable performance.

I personally am tired of the word “Filipino” when combined with the word “service” — it becomes an oxymoron, resulting instead in the definition of disappointment, unreliability and being a bigger hassle than a help. Institutions that identify as Filipino should be required to deliver more than just the bare minimum; they should provide the strength and tenacity of service that we are known for beyond the stretch of our shores. Institutions that claim to provide any kind of service have to be up to a certain standard if they are going to be allowed to continue, whether it’s private or government-owned. I am at a loss as to how things are going to really, truly change, when I am one little voice against billion-peso-strong industries, but something at some point has to give.

We have to matter more than pesos and cents. We have to matter as customers, and we have to matter as people who are also really just trying to make an honest living. We’re not just numbers on a page that add up to a profit — we’re people who are coming to these institutions because we have a need that’s expected to be filled. We are begging for provisions that allow us to be as effective as we can be in our daily life, to take advantage of the advances that are supposed to make our lives easier. The streets are crying out for honest businesses to do the big jobs others have claimed to be able to do but have failed miserably trying. The drought is clear and people are thirsty for a few good men. The question is, where do we find them?

* * *

Tweet the author @gabbietatad.