Oh no, it's the "five peso policy"

[Juliet and Steve 93]

Once upon a time, in Bohol (an Island next to Cebu for those who might not know) Juliet and I heard that there was a small beach--with sand. Now, some of you might not know that sandy beaches are a rarity in the Republic of Philippines. Most beaches are oozy, muddy, mangrove tangles.

Delighted at the thought of being able to take the bevy of children of the myriad brothers, uncles, aunts and cousins to a real beach--even if it might only be 20 meters tickled my fancy.

So we drove over to look at the sandy beach. But we found, much to my chagrin--that it was the owner (in reality he was more likely an agent of the German who supposedly owned the spit of sand) that though the fee per person (or child) per day to utilize said beach was 20php...that the "policy was that to peek at it was 5 peso."

Yup...we now owed 10 peso because we had the temerity to peek at the bit of sand. Much to Juliet's chagrin I almost ran the fella over with my motorbike because my policy is never to pay to peek.

And now...with our ability to reschedule or consular appointment seemingly stuck in limbo with Calro the CSrep who assured me that our case has been "escalated" (someplace, though he did not seem to know where this escalator actually went) but who could not, (or would not) give us a supervisor.

Carlos: "The supervisors are busy now." and later: "...the supervisors are too busy to call you back..."

Now don't get me wrong, Carlo did assure us that we were escalated, but when queried about a time frame, the answer was a, oh no!, unknown time period. I did ask Carlo: "so...let me see..this could be a few days, or a week, or a month or five years..." And Carlo dutifully answered with the typical five peso policy answer (which was yes). Oh woe!

So here we are--stuck in appointment limbo with the only way out seemingly to invent a "Back to the Future" machine so Juliet can make the appointment several days ago.

And such is life in the land of the "five peso policy."