This is the Philippines, you can cut the cost of everything: A digital camera usually costing around eight to ten thousand pesos can be bought here at a very low price of three thousand pesos, and sometimes even lower. It’s just a matter knowing where to look. Here, you don’t need to be filthy rich to buy a camera, nor do you need huge amounts of money for a cellphone. You don’t even need to do research for your thesis; neither do you need to do a thesis to get a grade. You don’t need to get married to have marriage contract; learn how to drive to get a license; and if four years is too long for you—you don’t even need to attend a single class to get yourself a diploma. We always find a way to make life easy for us. I’m not saying that this is something that we should be proud of. My point is, in reality they exist—and we are letting them because we want them there just in case we need them. We always want to find the quickest way out. Even if it involves cutting the process short, or scrap it totally.
Why bother spending mountains of cash for education. The only thing you want in the end is a mealy piece of paper you call a diploma. And if you go to places like Recto, you will learn that 1000 pesos is a small price to pay for a document verifying four years of college education. “It’s just like the real thing,” said a woman who wants to be addressed only with the alias Aling Lucy. “No one will suspect the difference. Only a handful can tell that it’s fake.”
Aling Lucy used to peddle bananacues and rice cakes on V. Mapa, earning four to five hundred pesos per day. Life was really hard for her then—living out of an amount barely enough to pay the rent. Three years ago, a friend tagged her along to join her business in Recto: selling unauthentic documents such as marriage contracts, transcripts of records, diplomas, certifications of employment, and even school ID’s and driver’s license. “It’s illegal,” she said “But it brings dinner to the table.” Now, she earns around 500 to 1000 pesos a day, not bad according to her.
She sits on a high chair facing a table with documents laminated on all over it. She would list down on her notebook, her customers’ name and what they want. The customer is then asked to return and claim whatever it is he/she ordered. The order is then sent to a place she called “the house.” According to her, the house is heart of the operation. It is where the layout and printing is taken place. Aling Lucy has no hands on the layout. She’s just there to take orders from customers. There are people in the house tasked to do the technical stuff. The house takes 50 percent of income.
“Sometimes students would come to us asking us make receipts for their enrolment. We would add around 1000 to 2000 pesos to total amount in the receipt. We would ask them to pay only 200 to 150 pesos. So they would earn more than a thousand bucks from their parents.”
The output is very realistic. If there would be anything dubious about their products, Aling Lucy said that it’s only the color and signature.
Yes, her business is illegal but nobody seems to care. All of her operations are done in broad daylight, at plain sight of everyone on the street. She would open her stand at nine in the morning and close at five. Even police officers rarely mind setup. There would be raids from time to time, which set the whole street to panic state. But even the law is not something money can’t buy. “Police raids would often send the people here running, but they are easy to get rid of. Two hundred to five hundred pesos are enough to buy off the officials,” Aling Lucy said. “The pay offs depend on the rank of the officer,” she added. Three hundred is already too much for a rooky, but sometime 2000 pesos is not enough for a police chief. Nonetheless, Aling Lucy said that it is still a price to considering how she gets from her business at the end of the year.
Prices of her items range 200 to 3000 pesos. Grade sheets usually cost 200 pesos, and a diploma costs around 1000 pesos to 3000 pesos, depending on the prestige of the school. Aling Lucy said that the computerization of the schools is making her job a lot easier. Transcripts are now easier to fake. The process of replication is now faster because of new technology.
In some days, she would be able to entice 25 customers. But more often, three to five are all that the day can offer. It’s a tough job. Everyday she puts her life on the line, but who can blame her—it’s easy money. Besides, the world is tolerating her existence. Basic economics: the supply wouldn’t be there if the demand is not.
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