Finally Got My Comelec ID But…

August 13, 2008 · Posted in Mike's Blog · 2 Comments 

After 5 years of waiting, I finally got my Comelec ID. Yes, that’s 5 years of waiting! Now, they should have made it quite perfect right? Well, not really.

You see, my full name is Michael John Gonzalez Lopez. Michael John is my first name, Gonzalez is my middle name and Lopez is my last name. Most people will write/encode my first and last names correctly but not my middle name. Most of the time, I have to remind clerks that my middle name is Gonzalez and not Gonzales (take note of the last letter). That said, I’m pretty sure you already have an idea of what appears in my Comelec ID… yes, they typed in Gonzales and not Gonzalez.

Could it have been my mistake? Definitely not! I’m ever conscious about the spelling of my middle name because I know that many people don’t see the difference between Gonzalez and Gonzales.

But still, 5 years in the making doesn’t guarantee that the people at Comelec or whoever they outsourced the ID production to will do it right. So I told the lady who gave me my ID about the typo and she kindly told me to just take the ID to their main office to have it corrected. I asked her how long will it take before I get the “corrected” ID and she told me that “it may take some time”. That’s 5 years of waiting and now I have to wait for even more just to have it corrected? I guess I have no choice… but I just hope that Comelec hires more responsible encoders next time.

Is that all? Well, not really. My wife got her ID a few years earlier but I was surprised to see that Comelec still issued her a new ID. The first ID didn’t have hologram logos printed on it and the new one has. So what’s the problem with that? Well, wouldn’t it be cheaper if they made it right the first time? If they printed the IDs with holograms to start with? That’s tax money being used there and they’re wasting it!

But wait, there’s more! Actually, there’s a couple more! Though minor ones in my opinion, I think it still deserves mention. Here they are…

The staff handing over the IDs didn’t even ask me for proof of identification. I just told them my name and they gave me the ID after I signed to receive it. They didn’t even check if my signature matches then one on the ID. Even worst, they gave me my wife’s ID and I received it in her place. Now, what if I came in and gave them a different name? Chances are they’d still give me the ID of that person. Talk about security…

Then lastly, I was glad to see that they already had my ID laminated BUT I was surprised when the guy laminating it asked me for 20 pesos for the lamination. 20 pesos is not much but if they’re going to charge me for it, shouldn’t they ask me first if I want it to be laminated by them? Funny was I didn’t have any money with me at the time. Luckily, our Barangay Captain who is also my friend was there. I asked him if he could lend me 20 pesos but he didn’t. Instead he told the guy at the laminating machine to just give it to me for free. :)

All these for my Comelec ID! What can I say?!?!?!



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Mike Lopez, Busby SEO Challenge Nasty Thief, Scraper and Spammer?

August 7, 2008 · Posted in Mike's Blog · 4 Comments 

First, thanks a lot to Benj for giving me the heads-up on this forum post which alerted me of the fact that the script I’m using to help me build content on my Busby SEO Challenge sites has a bug that sometimes causes it to violate copyright issues. As a result I decided to put down my original Busby sites built in Wordpress and upload a one-page HTML file that explains the situation.

The forum post labeled me a nasty thief, scraper and spammer and I have nothing against that. Of course, I’m not any of those and my only fault is that I wasn’t careful. For that reason, I wrote this short post to explain my side and I hope that many of you will believe me.

Now, what lesson did I learn? Simple… Scripts are great but they can be dangerous. Don’t rely too much on scripts as you can’t tell what kind of bugs are in them.

Good luck and thanks to the Busby SEO Challenge contestants especially to Benj.


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Good luck to The Busby SEO Challenge