Monday, March 31, 2008
Renewing My Driver’s License
When we first came to the Philippines
The next time I needed to renew I had moved to another town and also needed to change the address. This was a little more involved, and they had added a ‘medical certificate’ to the process. For the medical certificate, I was sent to the Provincial Hospital where I paid 10 pesos and was given a number. When my number was called, I went to the desk and my blood pressure was taken, a form was signed, and that was it. Evidently, blood pressure was the only essential, medically speaking, for driving
That time time I had to keep renewing my ‘official receipt’ for three years because my plastic license never came. It turns out the LTO in Manila, where the plastic cards were made, burned down, and my card with it. I finally re-applied and got my card in four months.
The last time I had to renew my driver’s license I was in a new city again. There were a lot of people the day I went to the LTO, but in only an hour and a half, I had my freshly minted plastic card in hand! Wow, I was impressed!
Which brings us to this last week. My husband discovered his card had expired the end of February. Mine will expire in June, when we will be in the States, so we both went to renew our driver’s licenses. The first item of business was the medical certificate, but now it is the real deal! Businesses offering medical certification cluster near the LTO, along with the smog test places. Paying customers have their blood pressure checked, are weighed, measured, checked for color blindness and myopia. (If someone couldn’t see the number on the color-blindness test, they just told him the numbers, I noticed) The next stop is the drug test, so don’t stop at the CR before you go for a renewal. After the results were found and my picture taken, it was back to the LTO to sit in line for quite some time. When my name was called, I found out I was renewing my license too early. When I explained I would be out of the country, I was told to bring a Xerox of my plane ticket… Okay, I’m out for this round and will have to come back another day. In the meantime, my husband was waiting for the cashier to call his name. At 11:49 the whole place closed for lunch, so we went home. We had been there for about three hours.
My husband went back after lunch and after waiting a while, and after needing the card to be redone since it said he was Filipino, he came back with the much awaited license. Whew!
My friends all told me I should have gone to the LTO at the mall which is very fast, so I went there the next day with my half-done paperwork and a Xerox of my plane ticket. No deal. Since it was an early renewal, it was a special case and this office did not do any special cases, so I had to go back to the other place.
I went the next morning, arriving at 7:30 am. They open at 8 and I was one of the first in. No LTO staff came to my window until 8:45, and then a woman with what must have been a fixer slipped up to that window and the guy gave the window lady P20, and she went first. But I was not far behind. I got my picture taken again, waited for the cashier and the final call for the plastic card, and walked away with my license at 9:15 am.
I am so glad it is good until 2011!
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# 1 AmericanLola said:
Hi Bob, The weird formatting is the only way I could get it to make paragraphs, and even then it’s not really right. What am I doing wrong?
# 2 Bob said:
Hi AmericanLola - I am not certain what happened, but I have fixed it for you.
# 3 ChrisC said:
Hi AL,
I always look forward to reading your blog entries. There’s a certain care-freeness to it (if that’s an actual word). And this one isn’t any different. Keep up the good work. I’ve made your blog part of my weekly routine.
ChrisC (Pinoy in Seattle)
# 4 AmericanLola said:
Thanks Bob! It looks great now!
Hi Chris! Well, thanks! You made my day and made me want to post more often!
# 5 Migs said:
Hi AmericanLola: Good to know you’ve put that behind you! It’s pretty stressful to apply for a license here in Manila. That’s why I once resorted to bribing one of the LTO officers with chocolate! I got my license earlier than did those who hired fixers, but I’ve let it expire anyway. Now I’m sentenced to commute forever.
Thank you for sharing such an insightful story. Cheers!
# 6 john said:
Hi Lola
I remeber my first time in LTO I was told they were going to check me for drugs and I would be there a longtime because of the number of people who come everyday.
Well I made sure that I would not be “caught short” so i used the toilet a few times before I set out as I am not a fan of the public toilets.
On arrival I was given a container and told to go tot he toilet and “fill it up”.
I assumed the drug test was a blood test….WRONG.
As I had nothing left in my bladder I drank a gallon of water AND AFTER 45 MINS I was ready, so I went into the toilet and was greeted by a smell and sites I will not go into detail here. Needless to say I could not go!!!
I went home used a drink container and transferred that to the container..so much for a full proof system.
Then I sat on the chair and waited for the result , within a minute I had an eye test and was given a paper. I asked what about the drug test
You have that report too, although that was impossible I just left and knew
I was in the Philippines.
# 7 rick b said:
American Lola
read this story of the licence tonight and i must go tomorrow, been here nearly 3 months and i need my uk drivers converted to a local one, not looking forward to it, but talked to John (Lip John) and he gave me a few tips, so, well i will get on with it….ooops its public holiday tomorrow, so, 1 day respite, tuesday then.
American Lola, on a totally different topic, you were posting some Cebuana tips and lessons, i printed them all out, very useful and then you stopped, i’m sure they were hard work to write and express but they were very interesting, do you intend to resume?
all the very best regards
# 8 AmericanLola said:
Hi John! What a hassle! At least I can say the CR in our local LTO wasn’t bad. They had signs however, that said that men had to ‘donate’ with the door open (so they couldn’t sneak someone else’s pee from a hidden container, I assume) and that women had to donate with an attendant in there… I was SO glad they weren’t enforcing either!
Hi RickB, I hope al went with at the LTO! I am sure John was a big help!
Hmmm, yes, I have really slacked off on the Cebuano lessons, haven’t I. I confess that for some reason I haven’t been very inspired, partly because I don’t know what to cover next. If you or someone else had some questions, I would love to answer them! I am very inspired by questions!
If no questions come in, I will still try to get at least one more Cebuano lesson posted! Thanks for letting me know this is important!
# 9 rick b said:
Hi American Lola
glad my comment didn’t come across as a complaint, on the contrary, i have opened up quite a few debates on the use of Walla, and Dilli, inspired by one of your posts.
what i found most interesting as a novice was your experience as in my position starting off, trying to rationalise somethings which would then make the language work for you. We are all not the same, like you say yr husband needs to come from another direction and that is very important, anyway thanks to you and a link you gave to a chap called Tom who posted a free tutorial, you have given me a massive lift, so thanks and salute, ….sorry if i haven’t given you any specific question because i’m still searchin for it but anything you can write on your linguistic experienes (in fact on anything you write i always find very interesting) will be eagerly digested, no hurry and best reagrds
# 10 Bob said:
Hi rick b - Not trying to tread into AmericanLola’s territory here, but in general, if you are talking about something in past tense you would use wala. If you are talking about something in future tense, dili.
For example, if somebody says:
Did you eat your lunch?
The proper answer is Wala if you did not.
If somebody says:
Will you eat your lunch now?
The proper answer is Dili if you will not. (note - “WILL” in other words, future tense).
I also used to have a lot of trouble figuring out the proper usage of wala and dili, but I learned this a couple of months ago.
# 11 rick b said:
OK Bob thanks for this, all good insight for me,
what wasn’t such a happy insight was my trip to the lto today, my goodness, it was hard work, reckon i got half way through the process, i need a day off, back on thursday after some relaxing pills, actually they are just over-run there, the system, although creeky seemed to work ok, but SLOW, just like American Lola says here