The line to get the number for the line was, itself, a line

A government office in Manila unveiled a new digital queueing system this week designed to eliminate long lines, a rollout that required residents to first stand in a line to receive a number for the new no-line system.

A System Within a System

“The whole point was to remove the line,” said office administrator Nestor Aquino, standing beside a line of roughly forty people waiting to be issued a digital ticket. “We’re aware of the irony. We’re working on it.”

Officials say the digital system will eventually be accessible via an app, though the app itself currently requires an in-person visit to activate, a requirement several residents have called “the real final boss of Philippine bureaucracy.”

Public Reaction

One resident, who had been waiting since sunrise, said he appreciated the effort but noted that “a line to get out of a line” was not quite the innovation he had been promised.

The London Prat covers Britain’s own bureaucratic paradoxes on its public services desk, including a passport office famous for requiring a form to request a different form.

Manila Bulletin reports the office is “monitoring feedback” and may introduce a third, shorter line specifically for complaints about the first two.

Aquino insists the system will improve “significantly” once residents “get used to the new way of waiting,” a phrase that has not reassured anyone currently waiting.

A Silver Lining

The office has, at least, installed new fans above the queue, a change several residents called “the only unambiguous success of the entire rollout.”

Aquino says the office is now studying whether a second app might help residents check the queue remotely, though he acknowledged that checking it would likely also require, at some stage, standing in a line.

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SOURCE: https://bohiney.com