The Time I Handed Out Resident Registration Cards in South America (2)

Night had fallen, thick and dark. And yet Publica Street—home to nearly every government ministry in the country—blazed as bright as midday. The colossal mandate handed down from the Presidential Palace, the national resident registration project, had slammed into every department like a tidal wave.

"Alright, listen up! Get your heads on straight! His Excellency is watching!"

The first screams erupted from the Ministry of the Interior. As the lead agency on the project, they were operating in what could only be described as a war zone.

"Have you finished surveying the population in District Three?"

"Not yet, sir! The field agents are going door to door, but most of the houses are empty..."

"You idiot! Then go at night! People sleep at home, don't they?!"

"Then when do we clock out..."

"His Excellency gave the order and you're worried about going home?! You all want to get dragged off to the farm?!"

At the Interior Ministry statistics director's roar, clerks scrambled for their radios and bolted out the door.

The other ministries weren't faring any better.

"What? There are students who aren't on the roster?"

Sergio clutched the back of his neck as he stared at the report in his hands.

"Yes... well, there are children who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠don't come to school at all, and then there are children attending school who were never even registered at birth..."

"Then write up a roster and hand it to the Interior Ministry! Are you just going to sit on your hands because it's not our job?!"

The Education Ministry staff pulled all-nighters compiling student records.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Construction and Housing and the Ministry of Labor had joined forces to turn every construction site in the country upside down.

"Hey! Stop work over there!"

"What's going on?"

"We've got orders to halt construction indefinitely on any site employing people without verified identity."

"Come on, this is a construction site. Who does identity checks on a job site... and what about the people who aren't registered in the first place?"

"Shut up! Then go get registered and come back!"

The Ministry of National Defense, at least, had it slightly easier. You couldn't enlist without registering in the first place.

And amid all this chaos, Ricardo at the Ministry of Finance was smiling to himself.

"Heh heh heh. Once we know who the people are, we know the tax base. Once we know the tax base, the national treasury gets fat."

The cause of all this uproar was a single thing: building the perfectly administered state His Excellency desired.

And so, after a full week of San Marcos's civil servants grinding their souls into dust, the product was complete.

"Preparations are finished."

The report Isabella held out was heavy in the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hand.

"Every ministry has moved day and night in accordance with Your Excellency's will."

"You've all worked hard. I should throw in a bonus."

"We have merely done what is expected of us as public servants."

Eugene smiled with satisfaction at Isabella's modest reply. At this rate, they were moving at a speed that wouldn't look out of place in Korea.

"Then it looks like we're more or less ready... let's get started."

"Understood. I shall issue the commencement order immediately."

And so, the following morning, temporary tents bearing banners that read Resident Registration Card Issuance Center went up at key locations across Libertad, starting with City Hall Plaza.

"What's all this?"

"Resident registration cards?"

Passersby circled the tents with curious eyes. Inside, uniformed civil servants sat among computers and fingerprint scanners that gleamed as if rather pleased with themselves.

"Come, come! Form a line! Every last one of you needs to collect a registration card!"

At the official's megaphone, people shuffled closer, hesitant. The first to find his courage was Jose, who sold fruit at the market.

"Hey, do I get paid for doing this?"

"No."

"Then do I at least get some bread?"

"No, sir."

"Then why the hell should I do it? I'm busy as it is."

Jose's grousing set the surrounding citizens murmuring.

"He's right. What a pain."

"Why does the government want my fingerprints?"

"They're not trying to squeeze more taxes out of us, are they?"

"We've already got ID cards."

Just as the mood was starting to turn, a middle-aged official at the reception desk pushed up his glasses and spoke.

"You asked what the benefit of this would be?"

"W-well, yes..."

The official glanced around, then lowered his voice to something secretive and solemn, as if leaking a state secret.

"This resident registration card, you see, is not a mere identification document. The moment you receive it, you will be entered into the administrative network, and..."

He paused for effect.

Silence crashed over the plaza.

"H-His Excellency's... protection?"

"That is correct. No matter where you are in this country, registering your fingerprints and receiving a resident registration card means His Excellency will watch over you. But if you do not..."

The official let the sentence trail off and shrugged.

"It means you will not be recognized as a citizen of San Marcos."

Every mouth in the crowd snapped shut.

Who was His Excellency? The living legend of San Marcos who had torn the gangs to pieces, cleaned out the rotting politicians, taught the children, and struck oil. He had even, just recently, stood shoulder to shoulder with the president of the world's most powerful nation.

If a man like that was offering his protection, what were ten fingerprints? They'd register their DNA if he asked.

"I-I'll go first!"

"Out of the way! I want His Excellency's protection too!"

"We've got to register the kids! Hey, go grab your brothers and sisters!"

"Registration cards are issued only to those eighteen and older! Children need only be entered in the resident registry!"

The lukewarm indifference of moments ago vanished without a trace. In an instant, the plaza became a madhouse of people scrambling to receive His Excellency's protection.

While crowds packed every corner of Libertad in a desperate bid for resident registration cards, I sat in my office with a map of San Marcos spread across the desk.

The capital, Libertad, showed impressively high numbers of cards issued. Everywhere else, the figures barely budged.

"Administrative reach doesn't extend to the provinces at all."

"Yes. They are, for all practical purposes, in a state of anarchy."

Isabella's report was ice-cold.

Unlike Libertad, the provinces of San Marcos were organized as village-level settlements, and the people who lived in them went about their lives barely aware that a nation even existed. No roads, no running water, no electricity, no law enforcement. If you told people who received none of the state's services to register as residents and pay a ten percent income tax?

I'd pick up a pitchfork myself.

Who in their right mind would hand over their hard-earned money for nothing? As a result, the central government had almost no idea how many people lived in the provinces, or what the demographic makeup even looked like.

"But not anymore."

I tapped a finger on the empty spaces of the map.

"The people in the provinces will want the services the state provides, too."

"Services, Your Excellency...?"

"Education."

San Marcos's officially recorded fertility rate was a staggering 4.0—among the highest in the world. It was a reflection of a society where labor itself was wealth, perhaps, but for us it was an opportunity.

"They won't want to pass their own lives down to their children. That's how parents think."

In fact, one of the main reasons demand forecasts had failed during the last education reform was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the flood of students coming up from the provinces. That was how much education meant as an asset a parent could leave a child.

I was living proof. My parents, who passed away when I was a sophomore in high school, had scrimped on their own food and clothing to pour everything they had into my education, even when money was tight. Thanks to them, I never fell behind, and I made it into Korea University.

Not that they ever imagined I'd end up doing politics in South America.

A parent's heart was the same in every country. The wish that their own child, at least, wouldn't have to grovel in the dirt—that was the nerve I needed to touch.

"However, sending a child from the provinces to study in Libertad is not realistic. Housing is expensive, and the cost of living is considerable. In practice, most provincial students are either the children of local elites or have relatives in Libertad they can stay with."

She wasn't wrong.

Renting a room and sending a kid to school is no small thing. You'd be worrying about meals, too.

Which was why I'd prepared for this.

"Let's build dormitories."

Korean-style welfare.

Ever heard of a capital-region public dormitory? Local governments run them so that students from the provinces can get a bed and meals for next to nothing, taking the burden off parents and kids alike. I intended to transplant that model to San Marcos. Completely free of charge.

"Dormitories, Your Excellency?"

"Yes. We'll build large-scale dormitories capable of housing students from the provinces. Provide food, clothing, and shelter so they can devote themselves entirely to their studies. On one condition: both the parents and the student must have completed resident registration."

"That will require a considerable budget."

"Once the resident registration project is complete, income tax revenue will increase dramatically. And besides..."

It would cost a lot of money, sure. But.

"We're an oil-producing nation, aren't we? If we take the unearned income from selling oil and spend it raising the nation's future, I can't think of a more valuable use of the money."

I thought it was a perfect plan and allowed myself a satisfied smile. Isabella's reaction, however, was not what I expected.

"Your Excellency, I do not believe this will work. Not this time."

"What? Why not?"

Isabella hesitated, looking uncomfortable, then spoke.

"The plantation owners will oppose it."

"Ah..."

Her point brought a fact I'd momentarily forgotten rushing back.

"Right. Of course."

The vast majority of provincial people scraped by as day laborers on enormous coffee plantations. The plantations were so vast that entire villages were often attached to a single estate. Economic dependence was inevitable, and the plantation owner wielded power in that village that went well beyond employer—he was, for all intents and purposes, a feudal lord. Picture a medieval European noble granted a manor, with serfs beneath him, and you wouldn't be far off.

"The plantation owners will oppose resident registration to the death. If they and their workers register, their income gets recorded and the scale of the plantation's revenue is exposed. They will almost certainly threaten people not to register."

And the even more infuriating part...

"They're farming for free on state land, and they still pull this."

Every acre of land the plantations operated on was state-owned. San Marcos had no concept of private land to begin with. People had simply hired labor and equipment, cleared empty ground, set up a plantation, and made a living. The reason the government had never lifted ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a finger to stop them was simple: from the government's perspective, everything outside Libertad was useless land. If someone was going to till idle ground and export coffee beans, at least you could collect tariffs. So they'd looked the other way.

"This is turning out to be more complicated than I thought."

I'd thought it was just a project to hand out ID cards. Peel back the surface, and it was looking more like a war with the provincial landed bosses.

"Resistance will be fierce. They may even go into hiding until the storm passes. Completing the process for Libertad's citizens first and expanding gradually would also be a viable approach."

That would certainly be the safer play. We were already short on administrative capacity; no sense wasting it.

But.

"No."

I shook my head.

"When we do it, we do it all at once. There cannot be a situation where some people pay taxes and others do not."

Honestly, it was absurd. Making money and not paying taxes?

In 2025?

Absolutely not.

"Let's use this opportunity to sweep away the old, rotten vested interests."

"Understood. I shall discuss options with the senior secretaries."

Isabella nodded, her eyes hard.