Anak ka ng Tatay Mo!
Beinte-kwatro oras na ang nagdaan wala pa ring eek ang PLDT pagkatapos nilang hingin ulit ang email trail ng hiling kong magkaroon ng postpaid landline na nakapangalan sa akin. Nawala daw kasi ang sagutan namin dahil sa “system upgrade” nila. Kawawa naman ang IT department nila kung ganun, malamang di maayos ang pagkaka-upgrade ng system at sa dinami-dami ng mawawala, yun pang mga email sagutan namin ang nadale.
Sa mga ngayon palang nagbukas ng tv—este—nagbasa ng blog na ito, ito ang latest kong hinanakit sa PLDT. Kasi naman, ayaw nila akong bigyan ng landline na nakarehistro sa pangalan ko dahil anak lang daw ako ng tatay ko, at hindi mismong may-ari o di kaya nangungupa sa bahay namin sa Parañaque. Kung ako raw ay bagong tenant, bigyan ko lang daw sila ng copya ng notarized contract of lease, magkakaayusan kami agad, pwede akong bigyan ng landline na nakapangalan sa akin, gaya ng pagbigay nila ng landline kay Ellen Valena, yung babaeng bumaboy sa bahay ng tatay ko at nag-iwan ng sandamukal na utang kung saan saan.
Go figure.
Dito ko ilalagay kung meron mang sagot ang PLDT sa susunod na mga araw. Sa mga masugid na sumusubaybay sa telenovelang ito, antabayanan …
edit: 08 April 2005 / No word from the online PLDT people … baka wala silang internet connection. Since I am a person who would like to have things done the soonest possible time, I went ahead and made more use of PLDT’s P10 per tawag promo and started dialling numbers that I felt were remotely connected to the person I should be talking to. First I called the Business Solutions office, since they were the only ones who have a direct line advertised. They then gave me another number which I called and who gave me another number which I called and after following the trail of numbers I finally reached Gina Munsayac.
Gina listened to my problem, analyzed it quickly and explained to me the difficulty of the situation when seen from their point of view. But after doing so, she offered me good advice on how to go about solving my problem of acquiring a postpaid landline in my name. The thing to do, she said, was to ask my father to issue an “Authority to Transact”, that states that I, his daughter, Maria Marina Victoria Kapauan-Gaerlan, has his authority to transact with whatever utility companies necessary for our home use. This apparently will be the “magic key” that will open the PLDT customer care’s eyes and perhaps finally allow me to be a postpaid landline subscriber. I am willing to bet that the selfsame “Authority to Transact” may work with the other utilities that I may need eventually.
To Gina, thanks for the good advice. Before speaking to Gina, I had also talked to Janice Lateral of the Business Solutions office, who suggested that a direct visit to a PLDT office with all the papers at my disposal will be more effective than transacting online. She has a point there too. But then my point there would be, what would be the point of an online transaction facility if in the end I will still have to plead my case in person?
But, granted, my situation is rather complicated, if seen from PLDT eyes. O sige na nga, I’ll grant them that. Pero naman naman … kung hindi nila makita ang lohika nito … maloloka ako!
Red Tape (a treatise on how not to apply for a PLDT landline)
Red tape, according to Web WordNet 2.0 is a “bureaucratic procedure: needlessly time-consuming procedure”. Many an office procedure is bogged down by it, under the guise of ‘documentation’.
To add to my seemingly unending frustration with PLDT, here is yet another instance of red tape. They refuse to have me as a postpaid landline subscriber because the house I am about to occupy, my father’s house, is NOT in my name. This despite my having provided them with a copy of the real estate tax receipts in my father’s name, my birth certificate which of course contains my father’s name and which also states that I was BORN in that same house which I would now like to have a PLDT landline. No, this documentation is not enough for the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company.
They will honor a Contract of Lease, as they first told me, to prove that I am a new occupant of the house, and unrelated to the previous tenant. So they want a piece of paper that says I am renting our own house from my father. Sure, I can cook one up no problem, but why should I? It’s my father’s house that he’s put my husband and myself in charge of. What can be simpler?
The sad thing here is I have no other alternatives. Globelines does not cover our area, and neither do Bayantel nor Digitel. I am reduced to making do with PLDT’s prepaid Telesulit, which rules out even dial-up internet access via prepaid cards, as the expense will be double.
(edit, Wed 06 April 2005) Here’s the succession of emails between myself and PLDT Customer Care (which I am really tempted to call Customer I-don’t-Care):
29 March 2005 / I have been trying to apply through your online facility but the .asp page keeps generating errors and my application has not gone through. I hope that applying through email will work just as well.
Personal Information
*Name:
Last Name - Gaerlan
First Name - Maria Marina Victoria
Middle Name - Kapauan (and so on)
to which they replied, roughly 24 hours later (not bad):
30 March 2005 / Dear Ms MARIA MARINA VICTORIA KAPAUAN GAERLAN,
Good day! We checked our records and found out that the telephone number 2-8513965 under the name of ELLEN E VALENA at 9472 ALEJANDRO ST, BALTAO SUBDIVISION, BGY VITALEZ PARANAQUE CITY was permanently disconnected due to non- payment of its outstanding account.
Should you be a new tenant of the above address, we are prepared to reconsider but will need a copy of the Notarized Contract of Lease or Deed of Sale. Please forward the documents to our Fax # 864-3461 attention: Customers@pldt or send us a scanned copy thru e-mail. Upon receipt of the same, it will still be subject for evaluation and approval.
For your reference, your account number is 171736307.
Sincerely,
Customers@pldt.com.ph
P.S. For further clarification, please feel free to call our Customer Service at 171.
*sigh* Listak na Ellen Valena ito, pati pala PLDT nabiktima. (Para malaman nyo kung sino at ano si Ellen Valena, click nyo ‘to.)
31 March 2005 / Dear Customer Care,
Thank you very much for your reply.
Ellen Valena is indeed the previous tenant of 9472 Alejandro. She and her cohorts have abandoned my father’s house last 29 March 2005. If you have the time, please consult my blog entry about the matter at this URI: http://bambit.kusangpalo.com/?p=84
The house is owned by my father, Oscar F. Kapauan, who is now a resident of Cebu City. He has put my husband and myself in charge of the house and it will be our residence henceforth.
For purposes of facilitation, would you prefer a copy of the deed of ownership in my father’s name, plus my own papers of identification, such as my birth and marriage certificates?
Please let me know so that I can acquire the necessary papers you require.
Thank you very much.
Maria Victoria Kapauan-Gaerlan
So I consult with my dad, who is now retired and settled in Cebu, and he promptly sends me what we feel is the next best thing: a receipt from the esteemed City of Parañaque, attesting that he has paid the real estate tax for 2005 for the house on Alejandro Street. The Deed of Ownership is sitting quietly in a safety deposit box where we feel it should not be disturbed unless absolutely necessary.
So I email this to PLDT on 31 March, along with a scanned image of my birth certificate with the following details: that the address 9472 Alejandro and 15 Alejandro (in my birth certificate) is one and the same house, the renumbering occurring after Parañaque became a city.
I received this reply from PLDT:
5 April 2005/ Dear Ms Maria Victoria Kapauan-Gaerlan,
Good day! We regret to inform you that the Deed of Ownership must be under the name of the applicant so to process your application for a telephone line.
Should you have further inquries, please feel free to email us back or please call our Customer Service at 171.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Customers@pldt.com.ph
Let me get this straight. PLDT allowed Ellen Valena to have a postpaid landline in her own name because she was a TENANT, who had managed to present a notarized contract of lease. PLDT will NOT allow me, the daughter of the OWNER of the house to have one, because of my inability to provide them with the same document. A tenant can easily abandon the premises such as Ellen Valena did with my father’s house, leaving all utility companies with whopping unpaid bills, disappear without a trace with the same utility companies not knowing where to get their money. They certainly will not get it from my father, as Ellen Valena owes him at least three months in back rent. But a mere tenant will have a bigger chance of getting a PLDT postpaid line than the daughter of the owner.
But since I, the daughter of the owner of the house, cannot provide them with a Contract of Lease, PLDT will not allow me access to their postpaid service. They will not give it to someone who has provided proof of relationship to the owner, who in turn has provided proof of ownership of the house that stands on the address in question. I would have been better off, they seem to say, if I had manufactured a Contract of Lease, have an unsuspecting notary sign it, and present it to PLDT, as per their requirement.
I don’t see the logic in that. Anyone who does is welcome to point it out to me.
Gigantic Gmail
And they say they have plans to add another gig or two … after this who needs any other inbox? 
So it’s come to that, has it…
I have been a bit out of sorts these days (actually, when I think about it, I’ve been a bit off since before Christmas last year), and I’ve put it down to the usual stress a breastfeeding mom undergoes when her little piglet is a year old and shows no signs of weaning herself. Then I came across this website and this list caught my attention. The 35 Symptoms of Menopause.
I looked long and carefully at the list and made an honest assessment of the symptoms that I have experienced.
This list of common symptoms that occur during perimenopause (the phase before menopause actually takes place) and menopause was developed from the real-life experiences of hundreds of women. All symptoms were experienced by numerous women and were either cyclical in nature, or responded to treatments (both traditional and alternative) known to address hormonal imbalances.
- Hot flashes, flushes, night sweats and/or cold flashes, clammy feeling (see note) *check
- Irregular heart beat *Haven’t checked, so I’ll say probably not.
- Irritability *check, oh most definitely *check
- Mood swings, sudden tears *check
- Trouble sleeping through the night (with or without night sweats) *check
- Irregular periods; shorter, lighter periods; heavier periods, flooding; phantom periods, shorter cycles, longer cycles *check
- Loss of libido (see note) *I don’t think so
- Dry vagina (see note)
- Crashing fatigue
- Anxiety, feeling ill at ease
- Feelings of dread, apprehension, doom (see note)
- Difficulty concentrating, disorientation, mental confusion *check
- Disturbing memory lapses *check
- Incontinence, especially upon sneezing, laughing; urge incontinence (see note) *check
- Itchy, crawly skin (see note) *check
- Aching, sore joints, muscles and tendons (see note) *check
- Increased tension in muscles *check
- Breast tenderness
- Headache change: increase or decrease
- Gastrointestinal distress, indigestion, flatulence, gas pain, nausea *check
- Sudden bouts of bloat *check
- Depression (see note)
- Exacerbation of existing conditions
- Increase in allergies
- Weight gain (see note) *check
- Hair loss or thinning, head, pubic, or whole body; increase in facial hair
- Dizziness, light-headedness, episodes of loss of balance *check
- Changes in body odor
- Electric shock sensation under the skin and in the head (see note)
- Tingling in the extremities (see note) *check
- Gum problems, increased bleeding *check
- Burning tongue, burning roof of mouth, bad taste in mouth, change in breath odor
- Osteoporosis (after several years)
- Changes in fingernails: softer, crack or break easier *check
- Tinnitus: ringing in ears, bells, ‘whooshing,’ buzzing etc. (see note)
I just scored 18 out of 35. That’s 51.4%. Does that mean I’m perimenopausal? But wait, there’s more…
NOTES:
- Symptom 1 (flashes) Hot flashes are due to the hypothalamic response to declining ovarian estrogen production. The declining estrogen state induces hypophysiotropic neurons in the arcuate nucleas of the hypothalamus to release gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) in a pulsatile fashion, which in turn stimulates release of luteinizing hormone (LH). Extremely high pulses of LH occur during the period of declining estrogen production. The LH has vasodilatory effects, which leads to flushing.
- Symptom 7 (loss of libido) For some women the loss is so great that they actually find sex repulsive, in much the same way as they felt before puberty. What hormones give, loss of hormones can take away.
- Symptom 8 (dry vagina) results in painful intercourse
- Symptom 11 (doom thoughts) includes thoughts of death, picturing one’s own death
- Symptom 14(incontinence) reflects a general loss of smooth muscle tone
- Symptom 15 (itchy, crawly skin) feeling of ants crawling under the skin, not just dry itchy skin
- Symptom 16 (aching sore joints) may include such problems as carpal tunnel syndrome
- Symptom 22 (depression) different from other depression, the inability to cope is overwhelming. There is a feeling of loss of self. Hormone therapy ameliorates the depression dramatically.
- Symptom 25 (weight gain) often around the waist and thighs, resulting in ‘the disappearing waistline’
- Symptom 29 (shock sensation) "the feeling of a rubber band snapping in the layer of tissue between skin and muscle. It is a precursor to a hot flash"
- Symptom 30 (tingling in extremities) can also be a symptom of B-12 deficiency, diabetes, alterations in the flexibility of blood vessels, or a depletion of potassium or calcium
- Symptom 35* (tinnitus) one of those physical conditions that seems to manifest in some women at the same time as menopause. It can be associated with health conditions such as hypothyroidism and heart disease, and is a known side-effect of many medications, including aspirin (salicylates) and Prozac.
SOME OF THE 35 SYMPTOMS MAY ALSO BE SIGNS OF THE FOLLOWING:
- hypothyroidism
- diabetes
- depression with another etiology
- other medical conditions
Now they tell me. I think I’ll just go and pretend to have whatever other medical condition…
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