We do not get paid for nothing. Being a government employee was never an easy task. Most people think we get security of tenure and enjoy the bliss of getting paid for the “petty” (as most will say) services that we give. Our bureau has been poured with all sorts of criticisms and bad publications. It bothers me, really. And it bothers all of us. Somebody once told me “diba paa-tatak tatak ka lang, sumusweldo ka na”. But what he never realized is our job is a lot more than that. I know a lot of Filipinos today thinks the same. I do not condemn him for that, nor take it against anyone who says it because nobody knew what our job really is. It has always been easy for others to spit bold words against us because none of them knew that in every passport that we stamp, we stand for them. We constantly receive memos and show-cause letters for every mistake we commit. Some were even filed cases at and worst, got terminated. Every person that we allowed to leave or enter our borders will always be under our conscience. If they get trafficked or become notorious syndicates, we’d have to explain for that decision. These people didn’t realize that we do our job in either too early in the morning, at noon time, and/or even on a graveyard shift. That we have to hold our hunger or our pee just to attend the long queues. Those who shout at us and insult us in our faces never knew that we work even on holidays. We don’t have Christmas Eves, New Year’s Eve, Holy Week, Muslim Holidays, National Heroes day and all sorts of supposed-to-be-restdays. It never came to them that we do not know what weekends mean because we only experience weekends once a month. Those who call us morons didn’t even thought of the days when typhoons struck and we still have to report for duty even if it means we have to walk barefoot on a flooded area or ride on a free-service truck while everyone else stayed home, drank coffee and listened to news reports. None of them considered we had to do all of that to PROTECT OUR BORDERS. We are officers -- law enforcers. Hence, we just follow rules, laws and guidelines passed and made. We never wanted to offload or exclude anyone. Nobody wants to see another person grieving for not letting them travel. Not even a single officer feels joy knowing that some of them had to lease or sell their properties just to go abroad expecting for greener pastures but only with the wrong documents. None of them knew that in every passenger that cries in front of us, our souls get crashed. Our hearts get burned. And our youth is slowly fading away. But we refuse to show it because we had to do our job. And what else? Most of you expect us to be perfect. You have forgotten that we are also humans like you, which means we have limits. One raise of voice can be taken against us not considering any reason that pushed us to do it. You people never knew that there are a lot of rude passengers than rude officers. You never saw those who shouted in front of us and curse us. Those who point their fingers at us saying we are big jerk corrupt officers and that person only had a 3-minute encounter with us for him/her to say that. You condemn one employee for fighting back against an insult but you never gave the rest of the employees any commendation for just keeping calm and swallowing all the bad words addressed. Oh well. It’s always easy to drop negativity against others than give them what they deserve. But with all these, I know we can stand that. We are used to it. we were trained for that. But I only ask one thing from those who have read this: to spare us a little understanding that we only DO what we are TASKED to do; and to not forget that we are also humans; we get angry, we get annoyed; and we get tired, too.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Apr 2014 15:29:02 +0000