Now some 6 months in my newly adopted country.....

I love living here in the Philippines the climate is warm, the people are friendly and the service offered to customers at a number of retail establishments would stir long forgotten memories in Western people a generation or two older than myself e.g. 

• not having to pump fuel for the car, this is done for you and it is also possible to have the windscreen cleaned and the tire pressures checked too, all without leaving the comfort of one’s air conditioned vehicle
• in the supermarket the goods you have purchased are packed into a bag or box by an assistant 
• at McDonalds and other fast food outlets, one is not expected to clear away your table once you have finished your meal a helpful attendant will do it for you
• security guards outside retail establishments often act as traffic marshals to enable customers to exit the car park, either crossing traffic or reversing out of a parking space. 

Naturally there is a price for such service, you may have to queue and wait for an attendant and the additional services suggest you should tip the attendant (and justly so too). 
As someone who is fairly self-sufficient and was brought up without it, all this makes me feel a little uncomfortable, but that is the level of service you get here.

There is another much less obvious cost to all of this excellent service, and that is ultimately born by the end customer, employees are expensive and therefore prices are kept higher because of the need to pay for these helpful, but not vital employees. However, it does remove people from the unemployment statistics......

On the flip side of this excellent service there is the bureaucracy for which the Philippines is famous, or should that be infamous. This is not only experienced in the public sector (licences, visas, taxes etc.) but also in the private sector. Now I have to admit that from my former career, I support the need to manage the way things are done, the necessary steps to ensure that the job is completed properly with the desired outcome for both the customer (whoever that may be) and the provider of the goods or service; these are business processes and the instructions on how to accomplish these successfully are procedures. However, I am also keenly aware that over reliance of organisations to rigid processes and procedures can be self-defeating.

I have noticed, and it has been commented upon by others in the media, that in the Philippines there is a tendency for many business processes to be transacted in a serial fashion by a number of different people i.e. much like a production line each person is responsible for one part of the overall process, passing on the customer and any associated paperwork or goods to the next person in line. For example, a few days ago I purchased a memory card for a new phone, this is how the transaction progressed:-

1.         Entered the shop to be met by Assistant #1 who politely enquired whether I needed any help

2.         Informed Assistant #1 of my need for a 32Gb micro SD card

3.         Was referred to Assistant #2, who took note of my needs and confirmed this was what I truly needed.

4.         Assistant #2 directed Assistant #1 to get a suitable card from the locked cabinet

5.         Assistant #1 unlocked the cabinet, showed the card to me and Assistant #2 for confirmation this was acceptable and handed the same to Assistant #3

6.         Assistant #2 requested my contact details, which were loaded to a database, I requested they not contact my cell phone, I was then directed to pay Assistant #4 at the cashier’s desk.

7.         Once I had been furnished with the receipt for payment, I was informed to collect the memory card from Assistant #3, where I was asked to sign both copies of the receipt, one kept by the merchant, one as my copy of the guarantee.

Total time, between 10 and 15 minutes....

Similarly the previous day, I had been to the Bureau of Immigration to extend my visa for a further 6 months, this had required me to present my documentation to 3 different officials, make a payment to another, show the receipt to yet one more and finally obtain my passport and new visa from a further official, and this took around 2 hours to accomplish, which knocks spots off the time to get a driving licence as this took some 9 hours and several more steps.....

Conversely and maybe this just shows how perverse life actually is, I purchased a new cell phone the transaction of which was conducted a short walk from the shop where I bought the memory card, this involved one sales assistant and took less than 5 minutes despite involving a much wider choice of devices.

Another thing that bemuses me, and this took a while for me to realize, partly as I didn’t believe what was taking place; we live close to a major road running north – south from Manila to Southern Luzon. As befits a road built with private money, it is a toll way, necessitating the collection of fees for the use of the road. This is accomplished by human operators handing cards which have a validated (by the use of a swipe machine) magnetic strip on them, the cards being relinquished at the end of the journey when exiting the toll way and a fee being charged according to distance travelled between entry and exit. So far so good, however, each of the cards issued is not only machine readable, but also human readable by the use of a permanent label, so if you enter at Santa Rosa the card has StR on it, or Soutwoods SWD etc. which makes the magnetic stripe redundant, after all one of the identifiers is not adding any real value. But the real kicker is that at the end of the day or whenever, all the cards need to be sorted and returned to their place of origin, no what lunatic dreamt that system up????

It should be possible for many of the processes involved in the purchase of a memory card, issuance of an extended visa or even a driving licence to be carried out by a vastly reduced number of people; now I am not suggesting there is a direct equivalence in the gravity of a driving licence or visa extension to a memory card, but from a process perspective there is little difference. I am not sufficiently arrogant to think I know the solution to this and even if I was, the inertia of whole societies would mean that I am likely to have little effect on overall efficiency, however I will try, where I can, to challenge the status quo and maybe to influence some changes; after all, just because it has been done this way for many years, this doesn’t make it the right or best way, time for some process analysis??

Meanwhile, our wedding photos and the video have been delivered from Purple Duck Photography, and a fantastic job they have done. You can see the video on YouTube http://youtu.be/eiscnQQ15mU.

For those of you missing my regular tirades about driving styles, I have been trying to work out a number of rules that should be followed, I was trying to limit this to 10, but couldn’t, every time I had managed this, something would happen that made me add one or two more, or to add sub-clauses and thereby making the simple set of rules like some sort of user manual full of don’t do, must do and if you do this you are an idiot type comments. I would love this to be taken up by Top Gear Philippines, but doubt if it will:-

Gary’s top ten eleven rules for Pinoy Drivers

1. Regardless of what your mother told you (or is still telling you), you are not now, nor have you ever been, the most important person on the planet, or for that matter the road. A little humility is a good thing, be courteous to other road users; give way occasionally and don’t just pull out into traffic, use your mirrors and observation to identify a suitable gap in the flow of traffic before moving off.
2. Maintain your vehicle regularly, i.e. check lights, horn, wipers, tires, brakes and all associated fluids and pressures at least monthly. If any one of these is found to be defective, please remedy this as soon as possible.
3. Flashing your high beams at me does not allow you to assume the right of way and to cut across in front of me, and is at best a gamble, as I may not have seen you. If my lane or road has priority then it is my right of way to relinquish, not yours to take; if in doubt refer to rule 1.
4. It is not a race, you don’t have to get there first, be aware of other road users; there is no need to cut in front or make a suicide lunge across several lanes just to be in front; remember the tale of the tortoise and the hare!! If in doubt refer to rule 1.
5. Indicators or flashers are designed and affixed to vehicles to be used to signal your intentions, please use them for this. However these become useless if not cancelled once the manoeuvre is completed.
6. Hazard flashers do not provide carte blanche to drive contrary to good sense and order for example driving against traffic (counterflowing) or to carry out any other dangerous manoeuvres just because you want to. Also they are useless when used at speed and especially in the rain as they cause more confusion than any possible benefit gained from having flashing lights on a vehicle. Rule 1 is especially applicable in the case of hazard flashers!!
7. This also applies to drivers of barnagay rescue vehicles, police cars, toll way operator pickups, ambulances and other emergency vehicles, please only turn on your red and blue strobe lights when it is a real emergency (being late for your dinner does not count), by convention other road users should then give priority to you, but if you insist on switching them on just because you have them or you want people to see your beautiful bright and colourful lights, the affect is lost and they don’t give you priority when you actually need it.
8. Driving without lights is foolish and extremely dangerous to yourself and other road users; the electricity used does not come from the battery, it is provided almost free by the alternator or dynamo as part of the general operation of the vehicle, make use of it and stay safe. Also whilst having front lights on is good, having the rear ones on too helps a lotAligned to this, can any lights fitted to the vehicle please conform to accepted norms, i.e. don’t use blue for brake lights, it’s confusing and especially don’t use red for front lights that is downright scary!
9. Contrary to popular belief, motorcycle riders (and tricycle drivers) also have a right to use the road, despite buzzing around the place like a swarm of angry bees. Be courteous to them and also give them room when pulling away or changing lanes. Please refer to rule 1 for clarification.
10. Plan ahead and get into the correct lane when turning or leaving the highway, we all know that jeepney and tricycle drivers tend to pull over at the drop of a hat and then block the inside lane, but turning right from the left most lane is poor form, delays other road users and can be dangerous; the same applies to left turns. If in doubt refer to rule 1.On the subject of lane discipline, numbering from the right side, you should endeavour to travel in the lowest numbered lane unless moving faster than traffic to your right. What this means in practice is that there should be no need to “undertake” as slow moving vehicles should move to the right side. If you find vehicles passing you on the right hand side, you are in the wrong lane!!
11. Leave a gap between yourself and the vehicle in front, this applies equally when driving normally, when there should be a 2 second gap to the car in front and to queuing traffic, don’t tailgate, it’s not clever, this applies especially to “Killer Buses”, “Psycho Trucks” and “Bullying SUVs”