About employment and the famous "Backer System"

Well, we are certainly familiar with what they call the "backer system" or the "Padrino system", in which the person gets the job because he/she has the relative in the company being applied to.

I am one of those people who wanted to combat this kind of attitude, not only in the Philippines, but also in the whole world. We might not see this in other countries, but still, this thing exists in every part of the globe, not just as evident as in this country.

This is kind of annoying, for those who strived for excellence during their university days are never given the chance to put that excellence in making the company even better. It's a shame for Philippine Human Resources Departments, because as compared to other countries, they almost depend in the commands of those higher-leveled persons who have given them the recommendation.

I hated this system. And because of this, I almost hated my country.

And then I heard about this job offering. The PhilHealth Customer Assistance, Relation & Empowerment Staff, or PhilHealth CARES. It employs nurses which will be "Health Care Agents", and will be deployed in hospitals all over the country. I used to be a walk-in applicant, then received an e-mail asking me to do online registration.

While doing the online registration, I thought of looking for another character reference first, delaying my registration. My sister registered hours earlier than me, and got an registration number of 2500+. I registered after her, and after hours of answering the application, I got a number of 4500+, which kind of put me in a very anxious situation.

Well, I didn't have high hopes entering this job. My co-workers in the hospital, way older than me, also tried applying for the said position. Some got tons of seminars and trainings (which adds points in the company's matrix), some got masters, some got units (as I heard from the internet), and years of experience. Me? I got nothing. Aside from honors way back in university days, I got nothing.

Days and days have passed, and I received a text message. "You are being called for an initial interview, *blah* *blah*, please be at *blah* *blah*.." In short, I just got another step ahead. Waiting for the day of the interview, I never heard anything from my co-workers, which puts me in another stage of anxiety. (It's hard to tell them!) However, in this stage, I told myself.

"Just in case I get accepted in this job, without a backer, I would not lose hope with this country, and it's hiring status.."

 I just went to the place specified, and I arrived late! It's one of my not-so-good traits before, I have had solutions with it, however, some unexpected incident happened, so I got late. However, it's fine, as the interview process started an hour after the said call time. (Maybe to give more time to those tardy, hard-to-hire applicants, like me.)

Several questions have been asked, including some which are controversial and mind-provoking. However, I will not mention them here, as they are confidential.

Soooooo I got past the interview, and am told to take the examination the next day. I went home optimistic about the interview and all. The night before the exam, I thought to myself. "Is this really what I like?" I had vague answers. Put me in another episode of anxiety. The ambivalence.

I took the examination, which is, I think, themed the same with famous aptitude exams within the country, which I am familiar of. It's OK, with the boring vocabulary part, the exciting abstract reasoning part, the mind-boggling logic part, and the ever-hard visual perception part. My mind dried up after.

So, after that, I resumed with my normal life. A nurse serving the Filipino people.

After weeks (maybe a month?) of waiting, topics from the internet arose. "Philhealth CARES list of successful applicants", "Philheath CARES updates", etc. which made me anxious, very much. I tried searching the internet, looking at forums, and seen that in other regions, others are already called, an official list of successful applicants from Region V already got published in the internet, and no news in Region III. I am really really anxious.

April 14, 2012, in an unexpected time of 9:30 PM. I received a text message.

‎"...just like to inform you that you have been selected as one of the CARES of PhilHealth Region III."

Boom! The statement that I've been looking for! I got accepted. Take note, without others' help, just me and myself.

We just had our orientation a while ago, and with the assistance of our ever-jolly Ms. HR Staff. The orientation went well.

I'm not losing hope with our country. And you, do the same.