SO ONE fine afternoon this week, I’m at the Baguio office of the Social Security System. I’d like my SSS ID card issued. I take a number and lineup, even if I can pull seniority.
I get to a desk where sits a sweet young girl with whom there is an ensuing conversation about how my name is spelled. Their system spells my family name without the line, curly or straight, on top of the n. I insist that my ID have the line on top of the n.
She asks for an ID that has my name with the ñ. I give her three. These IDs also all have Grace after the Linda. Their system has only Linda and no ñ. She asks me if I want to see her boss, and off we go to her boss.
Her boss asks me to give her a birth certificate that has the ñ. I tell her that I have never but never in my life spelt my family name without the ñ. Meaning that when I first applied for an SSS number, I surely spelt my name correctly.
We go into a discussion of how their system, the SSS computer system, has only recently been able to have lines on top an n. I say that it’s not my fault. So they should just correct how their system has been spelling my name. My voice slightly raised, I ask: “Ba’t nyo ako tinanggalan ng ñ?”
Then there is something about an office memo and I say that I need a piece of paper from her saying that I have to produce a birth certificate to validate the ñ in my name. She thinks I am asking for the memo when I say “piece of paper.” I am not. I am just asking her to put in writing what she said to me.
We end up with the boss of the Baguio office. At this level, they are able to validate, from a copy of my original application for an SSS number, the application dated 1985, probably before second boss was born and just as likely before parents of sweet young girl at first desk was born, that my name is spelled with an ñ.
So indeed, they must correct the way my name was encoded into their system.
And so now on to the Grace after the Linda. (to be concluded)
