The Long Wait is Over: Status Report on the Civil Registry Services at the National Statistics Office

The National Statistics Office (NSO), responding to President Arroyo’s commitment to speed up transactions with government agencies, significantly increased the number of clients it served within the day they requested for their documents and brought its services closer to the citizenry, through the implementation of the Civil Registry System Information Technology Project (CRS-ITP).

Gone are the days when the public had to wait for weeks before they could get their requested civil registry documents. After 10 months of implementation of CRS-ITP, 1 out of every 2 clients gets his document within the same day or the next day. With a daily average of about 12,000 requesters that NSO services for the past 6 months, this translates to 6,000 satisfied government clients per day. This means further, that half of the 1,443,964 applications that NSO served for the first six months of this year were pleased with the government’s frontline service.

Queuing time, or the time that clients had to wait in line to request for their documents was also reduced. The results of the June 2002 Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSS) round revealed that more than half (52%) of the clients waited for only 1 hour before they were served at the service counters while only 12 percent of them had to stay in line for 3 hours or more. The reverse was true in the March 2002 round of the CSS, where 46 percent had to wait for 3 hours or more and only 15 percent queued for one hour. The CSS is a quarterly survey conducted in the East Avenue CenSC and at the Releasing Area at NSO Quezon Avenue, both in Quezon City. These measures, among others, the clients’ satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the NSO services, the queuing time, and some demographic characteristics of the clients.

As of June 2002, 46.5 million out of 76.5 million birth records from 1945 to 2000 have been loaded in the computerized database. Those in priority years 1970-1980 are all been converted into digital format. For those births occurring in 1960 to 1969 and 1981 to 1986, conversion rate ranged from 87 to 100 percent. With these birth records in the database, copies can be released within the day or the next day, once requested. Processing time for unconverted documents has likewise been reduced to 6 working days.

The NSO also succeeded in bringing its services closer to the citizenry. Aside from the six (6) "Census Serbilis Centers" (CenSCs) opened in Metro Manila, NSO also opened eight (8) regional CenSCs.  Four (4)  are  in  Luzon:  in the  City of San Fernando in La

Union, Region I; Tuguegarao City in Region II; San Fernando City in Pampanga, Region III; and Baguio City, Benguet in CAR. Two (2) are in the Visayas: in Iloilo City in Region VI and in Cebu City in Region VII. Two (2) are in Mindanao: in Cagayan de Oro City in Region X and in Davao City in Region XI.

Three (3) more outlets are scheduled to open within the month of July, namely, CenSc Butuan City in Caraga Region, CenSC Tacloban City in Region VIII, and CenSC Zamboanga City in Region IX. All regional outlets will have been rolled out by the end of the third quarter this year.

The same services provided in Manila can now be availed in these outlets which means that the public need not spend so much time and money in coming to Manila to apply for copies of their documents. They can be served in their respective regions regardless of where their vital events have been registered. By January 2003, NSO would also start opening provincial outlets.

Statistics for June showed that 15 percent of the total requests were applied at the other Metro Manila outlets while another 16 percent were from the 8 regional outlets. Only 48 percent of these were received at the main outlet at East Avenue, Quezon City, where all requests were filed prior to the implementation of CRS-ITP. This resulted to shorter queues and less congested service areas.

On-line application also gained increasing patronage with an average of 800 website (e-Census.com.ph) visitors per day in the past 3 months. Application through the telephone (NSO Helpline Plus-737-1111) also continued with an average of 1,300 daily applications. These facilities provide the public with the option of requesting for their documents without leaving the comforts of their homes or offices, through the telephone and the Internet. Requested documents are delivered to the clients by courier service. On the average, 11 percent of the total requests for June were through these facilities.

These improvements in the delivery of NSO services were reflected in the clients’ satisfaction level as shown in the results of the June CSS where more than half (56%) of NSOs clients were either satisfied or very satisfied with the way NSO did its job. This was 13 percentage points higher than in March at 43 percent. On the other hand, those who were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied declined to 24 percent in June from 32 percent in March. Prior to the implementation of NSO’s computerization project, the proportion of these clients fell below 40 percent, with a low of 19 percent (May 2001) and a high of 32 percent (February 2001). This increased to over 40 percent after the project started in the last quarter of 2001.

For the past six months, passport and embassy purposes were the most dominant reasons for securing civil registry documents and specifically, they needed their passports for employment abroad. Other reasons included: local employment, school, GSIS/SSS, BIR, PRC board examinations, baptism, and marriage requirements.

Seventy-nine percent (79%) of all applications were for copies of birth certificates while 15 percent were for marriage certificates. Three percent were for authentication requests, 2 percent for certificate of no marriage, and 1 percent for death certificate.

The latest survey showed that over half (51%) of the NSO’s clients were female while 44 percent were male. Median age was 28 years. In terms of education, 58 percent were college graduates, 32 percent were high school graduates, and 3 percent were elementary graduates. Forty-seven percent (47%) of the clients said they are not working while only 41 percent are working. Sixty-four percent (64%) of the clients were from within Metro Manila. Those clients from areas outside Metro Manila were 27 percent of the clients, a decrease of 8 percentage points from 35 percent in March 2002 round of the survey. This could be attributed to the increasing number of NSO outlets in the regions that provide the same service here in Manila.

(Sgd.) CARMELITA N. ERICTA
  Administrator

Volume of Application

1. The NSO served a total of 1,443,964 applications for civil registry documents for the first six months of this year, the highest was in May at 277,297 applications while the lowest was in March at 207,273 applications. This volume was down by 11 percent from 1,623,333 applications for the same period in 2001 or 179,369 applications less.

2. On the average for the past six (6) months, NSO served about 12,000 applications daily, with the highest in May at 12,604 and the lowest in January at 10,952 daily applications. This was based on the actual number of working days per month.

3. Of these applications, the converted hits or those applications that were within the converted years averaged 35 percent for the past six (6) months. Specifically, the proportion of those who were served within the same day or the following day increased from only 22.4 percent in January to 45.6 percent in June.
4. With an average of12,000 daily requesters, this translates to 6,000 applicants who get their requested documents within the day of request and another 6,000 who wait for 6 working days before their requested documents are released.

5. For the past six (6) months, 56 percent of the total applications were received at the CenSC at Quezon City (where all of the applications were received prior to the computerization project), while 13 percent came from the 5 other CenSCs in Metro Manila. Due to the staggered opening of the 8 regional outlets, they only accounted for 7 percent of the total applications for the semester. Twelve percent (12%) were through the NSO Helpline Plus and e-Census. The other 12 percent were applied through other sources.
   
    

 Table 1. Total Population of Top Ten Cities/ Municipalities and Sex: Isabela, 2000

******Not yet operational.

6. It was interesting to note, however, that for May and June 2002, applications made at the CenSC Quezon City were only 50 percent of the total applications. The other 50 percent were distributed to the other outlets, specifically: 15 percent from the 5 other Metro Manila outlets; 15 percent from the 8 regional outlets; 11percent from NSO Helpline Plus and e-Census; and 9 percent from other sources. This resulted to shorter queues and less congested NSO frontline service areas in Quezon City, which used to be the sources of numerous complaints from clients.

Conversion of Documents to Digital Formats

7. Of about 120 million civil registry documents that need to be converted into digital formats, 61 million birth records or 50 percent have been loaded into the database. Twelve percent (12%) of these converted documents are those births occurring in 1970 to 1980, while the other 38 percent are for other years. Conversion started with the birth documents as these are the most requested documents and comprise about 70 percent of the total documents in the NSO archives.

Outlet Roll-outs

8. Aside from the Census Serbilis Center (CenSC) at East Avenue in Quezon City, five (5) other CenSCs were opened in major cities of Metro Manila. The outlet in Pasay is located in front of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Roxas Boulevard.
9. NSO also opened eight (8) regional CenSCs. Four (4) are in Luzon, 2 in the Visayas: and 2) in Mindanao. Three (3) other regional outlets would be opening in July 2002, namely, in Butuan City (Caraga Region), in Zamboanga City (Region IX), and in Tacloban City (Region VIII).
10. In line with NSO’s objective of bringing its services closer to the public, these outlets provide the same services as those obtained at NSO in Manila, like copy issuance of documents in security paper and authentication, regardless of where the vital events are registered.

Table 2. Census Serbilis (CenScs) Outlets opened from January to June 2002.

Customer Satisfaction

11. The latest results of the Customer Satisfaction Survey conducted in the Quezon City service areas during the last week of June revealed that 56 percent of the 1,000 sample respondents were either satisfied or very satisfied with the manner NSO is doing its job, up by 13 percentage points from 43 percent in March 2002. Twenty-four percent (24%) claimed that they were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the services of NSO, down by 8 percentage points from 32 percent in March 2002. The other 20 percent chose to be neutral. 

12. This was the highest satisfaction level since February 2001. Figure 7 shows that in the first semester of 2001, the proportion of satisfied clients fell below 40 percent, the lowest was in May with 19 percent. After the implementation of CRS-ITP during the last quarter of that year, satisfaction level rose to 40 percent in November 2001 and in March 2002 to 56 percent in June 2002.

13. The latest survey also showed a 34 percent decrease in the proportion of clients who queued for more than 3 hours before they were served at the counters, from 46 percent of the clients in March 2002 to only 12 percent in June 2002. Conversely, those who needed an hour to be served rose to 52 percent of the clients in June 2002 from only 15 percent in March 2002. The volume of applicants at NSO?s service areas contributes largely to the long queuing. With the roll out of outlets in the regions, queuing time improved.

Purpose for Getting Civil Registry Documents

14. Seventy-three percent (73%) of applications for the past six months needed the documents as requirements for passport and embassy processing. The other 27 percent needed the documents for various purposes, among them: for local employment (6%); for GSIS/SSS (6%); as school requirement (4%); as marriage requirement (3%); for BIR and income tax (2%); as PRC examination requirement (1%); for baptism (1%); and for other purposes not specified (3%).

Type of Documents Requested

15. Of the 1,443,964 applications for the first six months this year, 79 percent were for copies of birth certificates, 15 percent were for copies of marriage certificates, 3 percent for authentication requests, 2 percent for Certificate of no previous marriage, and 1 percent for copies of death certificates. In the past, the proportion of requests for birth certificates ranged between 75-80 percent.

Profile of the Requesting Public

16. The June round of the Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSS) showed that 51 percent of the NSO’s clients were female while 44 percent were male. Median age was 28 years. The survey also showed that 58 percent were college graduates, 32 percent were high school graduates, and 3 percent were elementary graduates. Forty-seven percent (47%) of the clients said they are not working while only 41 percent are working. Sixty-four percent (64%) of the clients were from within Metro Manila. Those clients from areas outside Metro Manila were 27 percent of the clients, a decrease of 8 percentage points from 35 percent in March 2002 round of the survey. This could be attributed to the increasing number of NSO outlets in the regions that provide the same service here in Manila.

17.  Table 3. Client's Profile: March and June 2002 rounds of CSS.

                Sources: National Statistics Office, Manila, Philippines