Walking the Earth (Of One Country)

When I was in college, I had the fortune of being a Program A scholar of the Department of Science and Technology for one year. Under the terms of the scholarship, DOST paid for your education and a few other necessities. In return, you had to stay and work in the country for the length of time you enjoyed the scholarship. If you work in a call center, you may recognize this arrangement as a training bond of sorts. We referred to it as service obligation.

Service obligation is a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is that you're almost certainly guaranteed a job after you graduate, and even if you lose that job somehow you're guaranteed another one until your service obligation is fulfilled.

The bad thing is that apparently, DOST is in cahoots with the Department of Justice - specifically the NBI. The National Bureau of Investigation keeps a watch list of people who aren't allowed to leave the country, and (at least until 2012) DOST scholars who haven't yet fulfilled their service obligation were on that list.

So a casual conversation on your first day at work might go something like, "yeah, you know, I always wanted to go motorbiking in the Himalayas except I couldn't get a passport."

"Oh, why not?"

"My NBI clearance has a hit."

"With that sexy, unique name of yours? How could you have a hit?"

"NBI has a hold departure order on me."

"...oh."

Followed by an awkward silence as your new friend tries to slink away.

Yeah. Ask me how I know.

It's not that bad. All you have to do now is get a final clearance from the DOST, and then your NBI clearance would no longer show that hit. Then you can get a passport.

Exactly how you can do that is...by doing your own research. Get in touch with DOST or the NBI. This post is not a tutorial.

I'm too lazy to take care of my final clearance so my passport is still in the hands of the gods. It's just as well. I don't see the need to go overseas just yet. I'd love to travel, to see the world, but I'd like to begin in the comfort of my own home.

Which is where all great adventures begin.

"What could be more delightful than to have, in the same few minutes, all the fascinating terrors of going abroad combined with all the humane security of coming home again? What could be better than to have all the fun of discovering South Africa without the necessity of landing there? What could be more glorious than to brace one's self up to discover New South Wales and then realize, with a gush of happy tears, that it was really old South Wales?" - GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy