I HAVE yet to receive my car plate, almost three months after I have applied for a new registration. Is Land Transportation Office’s (LTO) Jason Salvador really pro-people?
When will the LTO do its job of serving law-abiding citizens, I haven’t the faintest of ideas.
If you ask me, the LTO is another proof of the utter incorrectness of the “correct path” (daang matuwid) peddled at the very start of President Aquino’s six-year term in 2010. And did not Mr. Aquino profess six years ago that the Filipino is his boss?
Why the LTO, relentlessly pursued by Stradcom for unpaid debts of billion-plus pesos it owes Stradcom for years now, had to order car plates from the Netherlands is a clear proof of the government’s distrust to the inherent ingenuity, if not globally tested capability, of the Filipino to produce its own needs.
If the President is unaware of this “incorrect path,” what else that he doesn’t know about? Iqbal’s real name? The Filipino is supposed to be among the best in the world today, winning awards and accolades on many fronts in the global stage. And this utterly simple vehicle gadget of car plate cannot be entrusted to the care of the Filipino?
Surely, this is an abomination, an aberration even, and it is being committed, condoned horribly, by our own government.
Who can we trust now to protect our own intellect if our own government cannot love its own homegrown talent?
Maybe that’s why China keeps on bullying us because we cannot love our own kind, product?
But definitely, with this car plate issue bugging us today, be assured that we are being ridiculed, if not being looked down upon as without dignity and without noble regard for our own hide, by the international community—let alone by our immediate Asean neighbors.
We are now the laughingstock and we can’t seem to care.
Calling on Sen. Sotto
Now, this driver’s license issue, too. April being my birth month, I had just applied this week to renew my license.
Guess what? I can only get hold, hopefully, of my new license in June. Retrogression at work.
You pay P200 for the eye test, P493 for the new license. The urine test for license-seekers was removed a while back, thank you very much to Sen. Tito Sotto as he had correctly seen the evil scheme behind it. You dole out some money, and your urine is drug-free.
And look at this.
The eye-tester makes you identify small letters from a board, first with your right eye doing the identifying while you cover your left eye—and vice versa.
Of course, sometimes, if not most of the time, you fail in some letters. If that happens, you know what could happen next between the tester and the tested. Inside the medical room, a sea of shift can happen in an instant—if you know what I mean.
Now this: What’s a small, single, letter got to do with my driving? If I can’t identify a small letter on the board during the eye-testing, does that mean my eye cannot also see a vehicle in front of me while I am driving?
When did one letter become bigger than a vehicle?
Even the smallest of cars, like Wigo or Swift or Rio or Mirage or Amaze or Brio, I can see with one eye. In short, the eye-testing is one of the craziest requirements in securing a driver’s license as it absolutely does nothing to make your driving safe.
Gosh! One letter not correctly identified does not make the applicant incapable of seeing a vehicle while driving.
Maybe, it’s about time Sotto should look into this, too—he being also the author of the seat belt law? C’mon, Titosen, let’s do it.
Isuzu’s Izumina-San Farewell
On Monday Izumina-san bids farewell as he leaves his post as president of Isuzu Philippines Corp.
He will be missed.
Izumina-san has been here almost four years and, indeed, time flies. Seems like only yesterday when he came to our shores and next skippered Isuzu to one of its most successful stints in the auto industry, establishing record sales for the country’s No. 1 diesel truck for years now.
“I will miss you all and I will bring home only happy memories from the Philippines,” he said.
I had the rare, joyful occasion to be with Izumina-san one time when he joined me to watch the deciding Game Seven between San Miguel Beer and Alaska in the last Philippine Basketball Association All-Filipino. Before we entered the Big Dome, we had beer.
After the game won by San Miguel Beer, we had beer again—but not after I had brought Izumina-san in the center of the hard court to join the wild victory celebration by the Beermen.
He kept shooting selfies with victorious Beer players, most notably Doug Kramer, the Isuzu mu-X endorser. A most surprised Kramer asked Izumina-san how he was able to enter the Big Dome. Izumina-san, wearing a Kramer jersey he bought at the coliseum lobby, pointed at me. Naturally.
Before Izumina-san boarded his car, his parting shot to me was, “This is definitely one of my most memorable moments in your beautiful country.”
Sayonara, Izumina-san.
PEE STOP. The ongoing Auto Focus Test Drive for free for the public is up until Sunday at the Mall of Asia Arena parking lot but as early as yesterday, Ray Butch “Elvis” Gamboa is already celebrating. And with ample reason as close to 20 car companies have joined the bash. Cheers to you, Elvis, for your perennial midas touch when it comes to motoring innovations.