Miss Wilhelmina

On my last post, I listed down all the requirements for the registration. Check out the previous post.

And so it begins…

I would advise you to register as early as possible or as early as you decide to take the upcoming board exams. I’m about to take the board exam in May 2008 to acquire the Civil Engineering license. I registered on April 4th this year and it was not a very easy task to do. The deadline for submission of documents are on the April 18th so it was pretty close. I wish I could’ve registered sooner. If only I had the cash to cough up at the time. I did at one point, but I began procrastinating. Just like now, I should be studying instead of typing this.

Anyway, I knew it was gonna be a tiresome day ahead, so I went to bed earlier the night before. I shouldn’t have done that, because I woke up at three in the morning. By six something, I was ready to go, and the office doesn’t even open until 8 in the morning. When I got to the office, it was packed. There were even people waiting right outside the fence, aside from the people waiting inside the fence. There were two groups of people up front bickering. Apparently, the people on the right side were mad because the people on the left side inserted themselves in the line. They were mad because they have been there at the office since 11:30 last night.

When the doors opened, everybody was rushing in side. We made another line and after that we were let in. Having no idea whatsoever was going to happened, we just followed those in front of us. At this point, I still didn’t have a documentary stamp nor a mailing envelope, so I went to the tiny customer service office at the side and asked there. The lady told me that since I’m in engineering, I’d have to file first. So the steps.

1. Get the first two forms from the Information guy
All you have to do is ask nicely. He’ll give you two forms—the Notice of Admission that you will bring on the day of the exam and the Application Form. Make sure you fill up everything that you need. Time is of the essence. you don’t wanna get stuck there. Check if you’re a first-timer, write down the date of the exam, write down a big NONE under the “Other Examinations Taken” table.

2. Go to Window 5 to get checked
Frankly I think this step isn’t necessary, because when we did go to Window 5, she just wrote down ‘admin’ on top of the application form after looking at it quickly.

3. Go to the admin office for processing
I think it should be called ‘checking’. When we got to the admin office, it wasn’t even 9 yet. There were about 10 people in front of us, so we thought it was going to be ok. Two hours later, only 5 were taken out of the line. We were hoping to finish before lunchtime and it was an hour till lunch time. After 3 more people were taken out, the other 2 went off with them, they were actually just waiting in line and nothing else. We were glad that it was out turn, then we wondered what took them so long. One of our colleagues went in when it was his turn and came out in about 5 minutes. That didn’t take too long, we thought, then one of the girls from earlier came back with an Affidavit and asked us if she can go on in after our colleague. She looked haggard so we took pity on her and let her cut in front of us. Big mistake. She was filing for the Nursing board exam and we were for Civil Engineering. She had about 20 pages of documents on her and the checker(there was only one) went through all of them which took almost twenty minutes. We were starting to get nervous. We didn’t want to wait another hour before finishing. We have classes at one! Those in Engineering have way less documents than the Nursing hopefuls so they just whiz by. The Nursing hopefuls take forever in just one sitting. No wonder they were willing to camp out all night just to be first in line. I was extremely relieved when all my documents checked out.

3. Go to the Cashier
Pay the PhP900.00 filing fee. Now I’m broke again. *sigh*

4. Go to the Information Guy and ask for two more forms
This time you are asking for the Permanent Examination and Registration Record Card or the PERRC and the PRC Application Form, the one that’s blue in color and you have to shade everything for machine processing. You have to show him your receipt and previous forms, else he’s not giving you anything. Also, check your first two forms, fill out the blanks that you left there. Fill up everything, ask the Info Guy nicely for stuff you can’t figure out. But there should be an information board there where all the info you are going to need is listed. Learn how to read please.

5. Get your documentation stamp and envelope
Buy them at the Customer Service office, the one in Cebu looked like a mini-canteen.

Arghhh! It’s lunchtime! The office shut everything off for it. The other registrants had brought food with them, a lot of them were sitting down on the floor eating delivered fastfood. They all looked so much tired than I did. And to think that group was at the office since the night before. That’s how bad it is for the Nursing hopefuls.

Finally, doors are open again.

6. Go to the lawyer and get your stuff notarized
The lawyer is at the same admin office where you had your documents checked. People may get irked when you just walk up and go in, so tell them you are just getting your stuff notarized and are not in the same line with them. At this point, some blood are boiling, so always be courteous. Get your cedula or CTC ready, the lawyer checks them and then signs your stuff.

My friend and I were happy that we were almost done. Only one step left to go and we’re outta there! I looked at the clock, I’m only gonna be 15 minutes late for the class. But the exit jammed itself. The door knob was broken. We were stranded at the office hallway with 30+ people. We had to wait for more than half an hour before the door got opened.

After the incident, we went to Window 5 as the lawyer directed. We saw that the Application Form and PERRC should be photocopied before submission, so we waited in another long line to photocopy them and another long line to submit them. And guess what? It was the wrong window.

7. It’s Window 15, not Window 5
Lawyer must’ve been hungry. We waited in another looooong line, but we were so giddy about getting everything done already. It was almost 2PM on the clock. I saw that those ahead of me had to sign some stuff on the documents, so I signed where I had to and the moment I submitted the documents, I about stopped breathing. The lady at the other side ripped the stub off the bigger form, took my receipt, the NOA and stapled all three. The other documents were taken with the envelope and filed. When she handed me the stapled docs, I breathed again, and those who were with me cheered and said, “You’re almost there, Engineer!” and clapped. I smiled, and wished the others luck.

I’m almost there! All I have to do now is pass the exam and that’s it! Now I gotta get off this computer so that I can make sure that I pass it.