Government service is a thankless job
Unless you are a politician who wants to amass a lot of money out of the taxes paid by the poor middle class, unless you are a corrupt bureaucrat who plans to connive with contractors and suppliers, you would have a better and more peaceful life if you opt to work elsewhere and stay out of government. For the honest and hard-working people who are not trained to kiss some parts of their superiors' anatomy, they better work in some organizations that truly promote professionalism, integrity, decency and the value of respect and human dignity. The government is not the place to work for those who just want to do their work conscientiously, to perform according to their key result areas and key performance indicators. The government requires employees to submit to the whims of their bosses who are petty tyrants and dictators who just give you the choices of “either his way or go to the highway.”
If you are a regional director assigned in Cebu, expect that every weekend and even weekday, you are in the airport meeting your heads of agency and their cronies and underlings, wives, mistresses or both, travelling for official business (10%) and leisure (90%) with their friends and families. You need to act as tour guide and guest relations officer to them, or else your performance rating suffers. You are, in theory, a professional and a career service officer, complete with all the accreditation and certification. But that is only in theory. In the world of hard realities, you have to dine them, entertain them, and send them off with loads of pasalubongs, like danggit, nokos, lechon, and a lot of chicharon from Carcar, torta from Argao, inasal nga manok from Dumanjug, and otap from Liloan. Your promotion depends on the quality of your hospitality. That is called social skills in performance assessments.
If your boss is a macho, the night life should include a sojourn to the top spa with extra service, charge to you, of course, as the gracious host. Where shall you get the money with your measly salary? Some of you might be tempted to take the offer of some businessmen who have pending cases before you. If you are uncompromisingly honest, you have to beg and borrow to make your boss happy and somehow assure that you will not be transferred to Tawi-tawi or Sultan Kudarat. But alas, the boss that you just entertained, all of a sudden, has been sacked by the president, or has decided to leave and run for senator. Another one will be appointed and there you go again, spend for dining, wining and entertaining your new petty tyrant.
And then when you finally retire or resign, they will give you a lousy farewell party. All your enemies will deliver speeches to express how great you had been. They are finally happy that at last you are out of their way. It had been years of hard work and a lot of intrigues, politics and backstabbing. You will go and fade away, and soon, they will never know you again, much less remember all the good things you have done. You will just be remembered for the last mistake you have made. Government service is one hell of an experience that you are glad now to have left behind. Then, move on.