Such a big deal

First off, my grandmother is 86. She has never worked in her life which means she never applied for her own tax identification number. She is not an SSS (Social Security) member so she's never filed a claim for anything. Also, she has never driven a car, ergo no Driver's License either. With all of that said, selling her stock certificates is a major problem.

My grandmother wants to sell her stocks now. She thinks it may pose a problem for everyone if she expires before they're cashed out because of all the requirements. She wants me to handle it.

I got in touch with my friend who is a stock broker and he says she needs 2 valid government IDs. Two! Not one but two! Seriously? How can my grandmother, at her age, still have 2 valid government IDs! So I start googling for the easiest ID she can apply for, a postal ID. Seems okay but when I saw that a birth certificate was needed, we're back to square one. She doesn't have a certified true copy of her birth certificate, nor is it in the National Statistics Office database. Records from her birth year were not encoded in the system. The only way they'd accept a copy from her is if she gets it from the Municipality where she was born and they certify it. Easy right? Wrong! All the records in the municipality were burnt when they had a huge fire decades ago!

After much research, I decided the best way was for her to apply for a Senior Citizen's ID. I had my aunt help her with it and it didn't take long. The only issue was that we had her get it using her married name and she wasn't too happy about it. When my grandfather died in 2002, she changed her name back.

She said it wasn't hard to get one but there were lots of things to fill up and that they had to wait a long time for the IDs to be manually typed. Yep, using a typewriter, seriously. Not an electronic typewriter, a manual typewriter. I wish the government would just invest in some good ID card software that they can just input everything right away and then print the card in seconds. I think that would be a great investment as well as great relief for our elderlies. Oh well, at least she got her ID. Now all I need to do is ask my friend for consideration if they can accept just one proof of identification.

We'll see what happens.