If you either have a social media account or haven’t been living in a jungle, you’ve surely heard of SM Aura Premier in Bonifacio Global City. The new property boasts of upscale shops, IMAX theaters and landscaped gardens. Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker was present at the ribbon-cutting ceremony and an NBA café is in the works. As the famous tagline goes, the mall’s got it all for you.

All except a convenient experience, that is. Shoppers will have to deal with heavy traffic that turns an easy five-minute drive into a half-hour trip. This is partly because many are still interested in the newest Forever 21 skinny jeans, but that’s not the biggest reason.

A blockade cuts access to the road leading straight to SM Aura, forcing customers to go around the area just to get to the mall. All this is because of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), the government agency tasked to develop the former Fort Bonifacio.

The BCDA claims that SM Aura was built on illegal grounds, having bypassed permission from the authority. They also insist that the land allocated for SM Aura should have been used for civic and not commercial use. Lastly, the construction of a poorly built wall in the property represents a big threat to the residents nearby, many of whom live under the mall’s excavation area.

Before you cry foul and march to Gate 2.5, however, know that another government agency is in the picture. The Taguig government comes to SM Aura’s defense, arguing that the BCDA no longer has jurisdiction over the shopping center. According to the local government unit, the BCDA gave them a Deed of Conveyance back in 2006, transferring ownership of the land to the latter.

This document neither provided any specifications for how the property should be used, nor did it stipulate the BCDA’s involvement in any subsequent projects. This means the BCDA has no stake in the SM Aura project and therefore cannot impose their regulations.

The first question that might come to mind is, “Who is really right?” Both SM Prime Holdings and the Taguig government insist that the property was acquired and developed legally. The Deed of Conveyance in their possession adds credibility to this claim. Moreover, the BCDA has been subject to various accusations of foul play.

One such accusation is that the BCDA is in cahoots with the Ayalas, who own SM Aura’s rival Market! Market! and Bonifacio High Street. Another theorizes that this is the government agency’s payback against SM for blocking its claim on property in Bonifacio South. Both are unsubstantiated but cloud people’s opinions on the issue nonetheless.

Meanwhile, the BCDA’s response against the document is to file a lawsuit against it, which is apparently by both the Department of National Defense and the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

The second question is, “Why is it an issue only now? Why was the conflict over land use only made public when SM Aura was already open for business?”

The BCDA says that they have repeatedly taken action but were frequently ignored. They also insist that SM Prime Holdings hid the true purpose behind their development of the property. It is indeed likely that their concerns are only being acted upon now. A bit less plausible is their claim that SM, the biggest mall chain in the country, hid the fact that they were building a new mall until recently. It’s a bit hard to see how shopping centers can be hidden so easily, but they at least deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Of course, all of this information is useless if you do not really care about it. And here is why you should: It’s a case where it’s hard to know who’s right, but it’s quite easy to see what’s wrong. The problem is how bureaucracy works, as seen in the SM Aura situation.

The fact that we still have no idea what’s happening after SM Aura has already been developed and opened is frustrating. Perhaps more troubling is that the conflict is between two government agencies who should have been working together from the onset.

The BCDA is tasked with developing Fort Bonifacio, which is in Taguig. Why didn’t the BCDA and the local government come up with a common framework earlier, before this all had to blow up in their faces? Why didn’t they clean up the confusion about the property before transferring jurisdiction? Why weren’t the rules clear enough to everyone involved—and why are they still unclear now?

Unfortunately, these are all questions we have to ask every day. Bureaucracy doesn’t just rear its ugly head in the Fort. It’s everywhere, from offices that take weeks to release a single document to courts that give verdicts when everyone involved is already dead. It happens because every decision takes layers of clearances and permits and so many other documents involving undefined acronyms and obscure jargon.

It happens because nobody knows who is responsible for what, and they end up passing around the duty like a hot potato. It happens because the authorities expect everyone else to know the rules, when they use processes and terms so confusing and arbitrary that not even flowcharts can help the average Filipino comprehend them. Bureaucracy is a web of needlessly complex and inexplicably ever-changing processes, often only navigable with the occasional bribe or pa-merienda.

Inconveniences are not the only consequences. From a micro perspective, bureaucracy continually affects lives, often making access to basic services difficult to achieve. For every project like SM Aura that gets derailed because of unclear regulations, many smaller enterprises never get off the ground, thanks to a pointlessly hard-to-get permit.

Looking at the bigger picture, bureaucracy slows down development. Critics already say that the SM Aura issue is shooing away investors. Who wants to build a factory in a place where it can apparently be shut down after being built? It also slows down government services, making them too inflexible to be efficient.

In life-or-death situations like natural disasters, we often see how government infrastructure takes long to come up with a plan, when smaller organizations are already well on their way to saving lives. When decisions are not made properly, civilians pay the price.

The SM Aura issue may first appear to be a problem only for the burgis, but it reveals a problem every Filipino has to live through. Bureaucracy and bickering are not just matters of inconvenience, but also obstacles to growth and development. When agencies fight over rules and regulations, everyone loses.

Dwight Tan is a senior studying development studies. He is President of the Ateneo Debate Society, ranked the best debating institution in Asia.