Pa join in this thread, mga sis. For those who are planning to get their marriage license from Paranaque City Hall, this was how it went for us.
We went to the local civil registry last December 2014 for the application. The form itself was crazy because you had to manually write everything down on several copies (3 ata yun) as it had to be all original. My hubby was complaining all the time because he was tall and so had to bend to write, and he wasn't used to writing anymore so he couldn't understand why the registry could not just type the information required. I told him that in the appli pa lang we were already being observed, like a test, if we could make a marriage work; that shut him up
So we go to have the form notarized, which was cheap naman, and then to pay the city hall. Gosh, that was a really awful experience, because it was tax season so the treasury was sooo full of people waiting for their turn, it was crazy! After 2 hours, we were finally out of there.
Eto na, I thought that was going to be the worst na. But no, the scheduling of the judge was worst. The clerks at the regional trial courts were your typical government employees, so bored with their work that they don't really understand why the process and the papers are required. One lady in particular kept on asking so many documents from the local civil registrar, which was in the ground floor. The thing is that in my experience, local governments in this country (with the exception of those who had achieved world-class levels of public service and unfortunately there are only a few) are still riddled with incompetence and inefficiency, mainly from clerks who are there only to get minimum wages. Anyway, after about 3 times going up and down the building to and from the local registry, I lost my temper with the RTC clerk. My hubby was sick at home so wasn't with me, and I was in danger of taking another leave from work because of some person's incompetence. I lost my temper (I must say it was Christmas so people were lazier than usual), but miracles of miracles, people sat up and worked much quicker!
Next day, we returned for the counselling by the local welfare office. It wasn't even 21st of December yet, but we were told the office was closed for a Christmas Party! At 10 in the morning! And worse, social workers were doing the karaoke in the office! We marched back to the local registry, and told them the social work and development office, the one that gives the seminar, was closed, without any notice whatsoever. It was the local registry officer who was our angel that day; she told us to go back over there and insist that they give the seminar because they should still be open.
The social workers were forced to hold a seminar on threat of filing a complaint. Anyway, the seminar itself, which we attended with several couples (about 10 others), was a waste of time, if I may say so. It was appropriate for very young couples who needed to be told about family planning, who did not yet have stable incomes and so must often have to endure living together with in-laws, and those who may not have any inkling yet about family responsibilities. But we stayed for the certificate, which (hurrah!) we got after 30 minutes.
So all in all, that process was stressful but necessary
It also made me realize just how far our city hall still needed to achieve to even come close to some local governments
