STILL WAITING FOR THE ECARD

The horror show that is the GSIS under petty bureaucratic tyrant Winston Garcia is unending.

My dad was finally processed for his eCard at the self-serve kiosk at the Philippine Consulate. But wait. Now he is being told that he has to wait for close to two months before he could lay his hands on the eCard. Not only that, he won't be able to start using it unless he again shows up at the Consulate to have it validated.

And since his birthday will be in August, he has to show up -- yet again -- during his birth month to prove that he is still alive.

What kind of idiotic system is that which punishes pensioners with unnecessary trips to the Consulate, wasting pensioners' time and money getting snarled in New York City traffic just to satisfy Garcia's delusional requirement?

The eCard is definitely not a user-friendly system. And if Garcia has half a pea's brain, he should start thinking of a better way to do this thing.

The sad thing is that getting the eCard is only half the trouble. The greatest hurdle still to come remains: will it ever work, judging on a string of complaints heard from pensioners in places like Iloilo who have said that a lot of banks don't even honor the card?