ADVENTURES In EMPLOYMENT | (In The PHILIPPINES)

Pea takes her assistant Jen on a real-time, on-camera odyssey through the Philippine bureaucracy just to obtain the basic documents required before you can even start looking for a job. The vlog portion shows the absurd runaround of getting IDs and clearances, followed by Pea's trademark truth bombs about what awaits Filipino workers once they actually get hired — invasive medical exams, half-pay probation, body searches, and an employer class that holds all the cards.

What's Covered ​

• The mission: getting Jen's basic employment documents

  • Context: Jen is now working with Pea, and Philippine law requires Pea to pay for her health insurance (PhilHealth) and social security (SSS) — but first, Jen needs proper government IDs and clearances
  • The documents needed: barangay clearance, community tax certificate, police clearance, birth certificate, and NBI clearance

• The barangay clearance runaround

  • First problem: it's nearly impossible to find government offices in the Philippines — no online directory, no phone numbers to call, no posted addresses
  • Pea and Jen have to physically ask people on the street where the barangay hall is; locals give directions as "just over there" with no specifics — turns out it's about one kilometer away, not walking distance
  • They catch a tricycle to get there
  • Even finding the office doesn't guarantee service — if they're short-staffed, you have to come back the next day
  • They get lucky: Jen gets her barangay clearance on the first visit

• The police clearance nightmare (three separate visits)

  • Visit 1: arrive at the police station, told Jen's barangay clearance isn't sufficient — she also needs a community tax certificate from city hall
  • Detour to city hall: they pay for the community tax certificate in one building, then have to walk to a completely different building in the same complex to pay for a documentary stamp — Pea is baffled why they can't do everything in one place
  • Visit 2: return to the police station with the tax certificate — told Jen's clothing (sleeveless top / bare arms) is "inappropriate" for her police clearance photo; they either have to go home or find a new shirt
  • Detour to ukay-ukay (secondhand clothing store): buy a shirt for 35 pesos (about 70 cents US) so Jen can cover her arms
  • Visit 3: return to the police station a third time — finally get the police clearance
  • Pea and Jen are exhausted, hungry (no lunch), and sweating in the heat; Jen is visibly angry

• The birth certificate / PSA ordeal

  • Go to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) office for Jen's birth certificate
  • Turned away because they don't have a quarantine pass (COVID-era requirement) AND don't have face shields (other government offices didn't require them)
  • Detour back to the barangay hall to get quarantine passes
  • Detour to a store to buy face shields — 35 pesos each (about 70 cents); Pea jokes they look like spacemen
  • Return to PSA with passes and face shields — discover that Jen has NO RECORD; she's unregistered in the system
  • Must check with Jen's local registrar to sort it out before returning to PSA
  • Eventually resolved (off-camera)

• Final result

  • After approximately six and a half hours of running around town in the heat, they obtain: barangay clearance, community tax certificate, police clearance, birth certificate, and NBI clearance
  • These documents allow Pea to register Jen for SSS and PhilHealth
  • Pea emphasizes: this is ONLY the first step — what they just went through is just to begin the job search process

• Truth bombs: what happens AFTER you have the paperwork

  • Even for basic jobs like flipping burgers at a fast food chain, most workers have at least some college-level education — it's common to endure 14 years of schooling and end up waiting tables with no real prospects
  • Before getting even a simple department store or grocery job, you must submit to invasive medical tests: stool sample, blood test, urinalysis, and more — all expensive, and the worker pays for everything
  • You'll spend a day at the Bureau of Internal Revenue applying for a tax ID number (another adventure) with more fees — "we actually have to pay a fee to register so that we can pay our taxes"
  • If hired, you're likely required to buy your own uniform, company-approved stockings and shoes, even your own pen — often required to purchase them from the company itself
  • By the time you report to work, you've spent a pile of money you probably didn't have
  • Probationary periods with half pay for the first month or two
  • Contracts that allow the company to terminate you for no reason after six months — specifically to avoid giving raises or paying social security benefits; then you start the whole process over, twice a year
  • Daily body searches: when you arrive at work, you bring a handwritten list of every personal item (hair clips, lipstick, money); a guard searches you against the list; when you leave, another guard searches you again, including inside your bra and panties

• Why it's like this (Pea's structural argument)

  • Too many people, not enough jobs — employers hold all the cards
  • They can treat workers however they want, fire them for minor infractions, terminate them to avoid benefits, knowing there's "an infinite number of overqualified workers just dying to take their places"
  • Many Filipinos are forced to go abroad for employment, which can lead to mistreatment on foreign soil as well
  • The situation is unlikely to change anytime soon

• End-credits comedy bit

  • Pea acts out a job applicant presenting an absurd stack of documents: blood test, urinalysis, "rectal swab, vision test, underwater polygraph test, armpit tickling threshold test," proof of virginity ("very difficult to forge — I mean, to obtain"), a company logo branding, and more
  • Punchline: after all of that, she's told she can't apply at 7-Eleven because she's missing a course in gender studies — despite having a master's in structural engineering and a PhD in neuroscience
  • "I'll just sell fruit on the street like everyone else"

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