Pilapinas: NSO Birth Certificate: Process Today, Issue Today in 5 hours and 5 minutes

It took me 5 hours and 5 minutes to secure my National Statistics Office certified birth certificate. This covered frisking by guard at the entrance to the releasing of the certification at the releasing window.

Transaction is process today, issue today.  NSO uses a combination of continuous and batch flow in processing the request segmented in 4 parts: Security check, queue number issuance and application form fill in as Step 1, form assessing as Step 2, payment and data checking as Step 3 and releasing as the final Step. Step 1 is free flowing while Steps 2 to 5 are controlled in batches. Initially, the bottleneck was at the checking as not all posts were manned. Eventually, the bottleneck transferred to the data checking and paying step when the number of forms checked surpassed the hundreds mark.

I registered at 7:45 AM at the NSO Serbilis Center at East Avenue, issued a queue number 1324. I was out of the center at 12:30 with my certificate. Excluding Step 4, NSO processed 338 applicants in an hour. To include the 1 and a half hour of waiting for the release, it averaged to 244 completed issuance for an hour.

This was relatively better compared to 2 years ago when after payment, I was only able to be issued a certificate after 2 days. I was told that the center at times had to process about 10,000 applicants. Today's transaction was trending to about 6,000.

Another option apart from the physical appearance is to call in NSO helpline where your certificate is processed online or by phone and delivered to you in 3-4 days after payment. Cost is P350 compared to P140 for a request for birth certificate. Taking this option spares you from the grouchy old NSO personnel both at the assessing and payment counters (most of them). The friendly guards make up for the employee’s temper.

It puzzles me though that to request for a Certificate of No Marriage takes longer and much more expensive.

Update as of 3 June 2015: Releasing reduced from 5 hours to 3

NSO this 2015 offered an innovation. To the applicants with BReN (Birth Registration Number) from their previous issuance, processing time for a request can be done in 3 hours from the 5 hours reported last April 2014. A special payment counter is dedicated to the applicants with BReN skipping the numerical queue. After payment, the certificates are issued on the next counter in the same hall after about an hour. For the rest, the issuance is still on the other hall on a designated date and time. Fee is still P140.00 per copy for all certificates. Certificate of No Marriage is at P 195.00. (I checked in at 10:30 with queue number 3150. I got the certificates at 1:30 PM. There were about 4,000 applicants on a Wednesday.)

Officially, NSO does not recognize the Philippine Postal ID as an acceptable identification.