Student Permit

I dreaded the day that I will have to go the LTO office to get my driver's license. My bad experience in obtaining my NBI clearance, TIN and SSS numbers when I was a fresh graduate sort of traumatized me and made me avoid going to any government office as much as I can.

I have scheduled myself to go to LTO Cainta to get my Student Permit, so I can start driving with my dad during the day. My dad picks me up from work every night and lets me drive the way home for about two weeks now.

And so we went to the LTO office, and when we got there, I was disgusted when a man asked us to pay for parking fee! Well, it was ony P30 but I was thinking that they shouldn't be asking for parking fee for a lousy, uncovered, unpaved government parking lot. Not to mention P30 is the same price you pay if you park at Eastwood City's covered, paved and guarded parking lot for three long hours.

We arrived there at about 8:30 am, which I thought is early, but the line was already at the far end of the room. I wanted to go back home and sleep on my nice comfy bed while I let A1 or Dynamic Driving Institute work on my license. But I wanted to appreciate my dad's efforts to wake up early and accompany me in such a dingy place. It was a covered area, with some stores inside and various drug testing centers and there wasn't ANY form of ventilation. I was sweating the whole time while I was just standing there in line. After about almost an hour's wait, I was already halfway the line, between all sorts of people (mostly men) who look like they haven't even taken a bath in years. It scared me that these guys will have a license to drive. I also realized that the line I was in (which I thought was the line ONLY for student permit applicants), was the same line for license renewal, and license upgrade. And then I heard the PA: "Hindi na po Kami tumatanggap ng Student Permit application. Cut off na po. First 50 lang tinatanggap namin!" (We're no longer accepting applicants for the Student Permit. We have the reached the first 50 cut off.") Now how lame is that? Shouldn't the lazy guard in the front door have counted or kept track of the number of applicants in the first instance? Or shouldn't that be job of the guy who was giving out the forms? I was so angry on our way out especially when I remembered that we have to pay for parking.

We decided to go to LTO in Marikina the next day. We arrived there at 8am, and I got my permit a little more than an hour after. No fixers. I had it better in the Marikina office, but I understand why some people (who doesn't have time and has little money to spare) resort to fixers.