How to retrieve your Driver's License from LTO

In our country, corruption is everywhere. We always hear about it in the news, whine about it, but never do anything about it. We always expect officials/personnel from higher office to come up with plans to eliminate corruption but we never thought about how we can help in our own little way.

Corruption is not isolated in government offices, we experience and see it in our daily lives -- e.g. not issuing official receipts to avoid the appropriate taxes, cab drivers not giving any change to passengers, paying fixers to illegally expedite processes, etc. But for this particular post, I want to zero in on bribery after committing traffic violations. If each one of us, especially the drivers, steer away from bribing police officers / traffic enforcers to get out of these situations, that "business" will eventually die. As they say, walang magnanakaw kung walang magpapanakaw.

During my first year of driving, I was apprehended a couple of times (Yza has been a witness in all of these violations. hihi). I admit, I bribed my way out more than half the time. However, after a few occurrences, it felt so easy to disobey traffic rules because of how easy I can get away with it (by bribing). So after a year and a half of driving, I promised to myself that: (1) I should obey traffic rules as diligently as I can, and (2) if ever I get apprehended for a traffic violation I did commit, regardless if it's intentional or not, I will NOT resort to bribing and will follow due process.

You know what? It worked, I was able to condition my own mind. It has been a year and a half and I never committed any traffic violation.

Until last week...

On our way to La Union last June 3 to go surfing (blog post here), I got apprehended for over-speeding in SCTEX. Speed limit is at 100 kph. I got caught by the radars at 121kph. As soon as they detect you, they alert the people assigned in the toll gates to look out for your plate number; they apprehend you while paying the toll fee (maybe you can get away if you have the E-pass thing, hmm, but that's not the point of this post. =P).

Although I failed on my first promise (tao lang po), I followed through on my second. I handed over my license, did a bit of negotiation (not on the bribe but just in case Mr. Police Officer was kind enough to forgive me, which didn't happen, unfortunately. hehe), then I just asked where I need to get my DL and how much I should prepare, which Mr. Police Officer politely answered. I got my citation ticket in exchange and moved on.

After ~72 hours, I was in LTO East Avenue, QC, ready to get my license back.

(sorry about the long introduction, got carried away. hehe.)

What do you need to do to get your driver's license back?

All apprehensions in NLEX/SCTEX are directed to LTO East Ave. for claiming. Below guide is specific to the LTO East Ave. process. Other LTO offices / other offices you need to claim your license from (depending on where you got apprehended) might have slightly different processes but I would assume the main steps should be more or less the same.

For duration references, I arrived at 8:30AM.

STEP 1: Submit your citation ticket or Temporary Operator's Permit (TOP), as LTO calls it.

Location: LETAS Bldg.
Duration: It took me 1.5 hours to complete this step. Finished around 10AM.
Requirement/s: Temporary Operator's Permit (TOP)

As soon as you reach the LTO Central Office in East Ave., look for the LETAS (Law Enforcement and Traffic Adjudication System) Bldg. There will be a queue outside so just find the end of the line and queue up. The queue will lead you to the ground floor of the LETAS Bldg.

Once inside, you surrender your TOP and you get a number in exchange. Wait for your name/number to be called.


The building is air-conditioned and there's TV (NBA Western Conference Finals 2012 Game 6 between OKC-SAS was showing) so waiting wasn't as painful for me.

As soon as you are called, you'll get back your TOP plus a resolution document (I forgot the official name) which contains the traffic violation you committed, the breakdown of penalties you need to pay and if you are required to attend a seminar / pass the exam.

STEP 2: Pay the necessary penalties as indicated in the resolution document.

Location: Cashier @ Window 9
Duration: It took me 30 minutes to complete this step. Finished around 10:30AM.
Requirement/s: Temporary Operator's Permit (TOP), Resolution Document (or whatever the official name is)

All payments need to be transacted with the Cashier at Window 9. This is located a couple of buildings away from LETAS Bldg., just ask around.

In my case, over-speeding falls under Reckless Driving. Below was the breakdown of my penalty:

Reckless Driving:	Php 1,000.00
Legal Research Fund:	Php 10.00
LETAS Training Fee:	Php 200.00
LETAS Comp Fee:	Php 67.63
-------------------------------------------------
Total Amount To Be Paid:	Php 1,277.63

As soon as you arrive at Window 9, physically queue up to pay (no number system). The official receipt will not be given right after though, so you need to wait for your name to be called a few minutes after the actual payment. Do not forget to wait for your official receipt. You don't want to go to the next step and realize you have to go back to get your OR.

STEP 3: Attend the Traffic Safety Management Seminar and pass the exam.

Location: Some building at the back of the LTO compound
Duration: Approximately 2 hours (Pre-Test: 20mins; Film Showing: 30mins; Post-Test: 20mins; Waiting for the test results: 50mins). Finished around 3PM.
Requirement/s: Temporary Operator's Permit (TOP), Resolution Document (or whatever the official name is), Official Receipt and a ballpen

This is where most of my time was wasted. When I arrived at the building where the seminar will be conducted, I was told I didn't reach the cutoff of the current session and would need to come back for the 1PM session. Apparently, there are set sessions for the seminar as follows:

Session #1: 8AM - 10AM
Session #2: 10AM - 12PM
Session #3: 1PM - 3PM
Session #4: 3PM - 5PM

Since I finished Step 2 at 10:30AM, I wasn't allowed to join session #2 anymore. If only I arrived 30 minutes earlier, I could have saved 2.5 hours. But I didn't. So I had to wait. I watched the remainder of the OKC-SAS game (which OKC won -- the game and the series), had lunch outside, then went back at 1PM.

At the seminar hall, we were given 3 pieces of paper: a pre-test answer sheet, an information sheet and a post-test answer sheet.

The information sheet had to be filled-out first with your name, license type, vehicle type, plate number, violation, etc. together with the TOP number, TAS Case # (from the Resolution Document) and OR number. This is why you need all these documents with you coming into the seminar.

The exam booklets were distributed and the attendees were expected to answer the pre-test with whatever stock knowledge we had. We were told this was not recorded.

The seminar started (which was not really a seminar, but a film showing). It started with the history of transportation, traffic rules, LTO, etc followed by requirements in applying for student permit, non-pro and professional driver's licenses, capped off by categories and samples of road signs. Boring stuff.

Before the film showing even finished, the LTO person already interrupted and pressured everyone to start transferring our answers from the pre-test sheet to the post-test sheet so they can start checking.

The film showing was no way helpful to the exam. The exam consisted of 60 multiple choice questions. The film showing probably helped on 5 out of the 60 but the remainder really relied on your stock knowledge and experience. There were questions like the maximum axle load for trucks, maximum speed in school zones, exact number of meters away when you should start signalling left or right, etc, those which require you to know exact numbers/figures. I just considered these questions as part of my margin of error (passing score is 48). The rest are experiential and as long as you have been driving for a while, these should all be familiar.

After the exam, we were asked to go up to the 2nd floor of the seminar building while we wait for the test results. We were given Ang Drayber Na Pinoy, Fourth Edition booklets as a constant reminder of our LTO seminar.


While waiting, Praybeyt Benjamin, starring Vice Ganda, was showing to keep us entertained.

After almost an hour, we were called one by one to receive the Seminar Certificates for those who passed. I got a score of 52/60. I passed! =)


P.S. If you fail the exam, you can retake it on the same day. If you fail the second time, you need to retake both the seminar AND exam.


P.P.S. A violation committed for the 2nd (or nth) time will only be treated as 2nd offense (and the corresponding penalties) if the 1st offense was committed less than a year ago. This means that if you were charged for Reckless Driving on June 2012, your next Reckless Driving violation will not be considered as 2nd offense if it will be after June 2013, else you get charged for 2nd offense penalties including a 2-month suspension of your license.

STEP 4: Claim your license.

Location: 2nd flr. LETAS Bldg. Window 39
Duration: Around 30mins. Finished at 3:30PM.
Requirements: TOP, Resolution Document, Official Receipt and the Seminar Certificate

After you receive your Seminar Certificate, you need to go back to the LETAS Bldg (from Step 1) but this time, you need to proceed to the 2nd flr, Window 39.

Submit all your documents and wait for your name to be called. Once you are called, you get your Driver's License back and your Official Receipt. LTO will retain all other documents (Yes, including your Seminar Certificate saying that you passed the exam. No, you can't brag to your friends anymore unless you took a photo of it before surrendering the certificate).

Summary

I spent ~Php1.2k and almost a day (from 8:30AM to 3:30PM) to retrieve my license. However, the whole process should just take less than half a day (half-day max) to complete if you take note of the seminar schedules in advance and plan your time of arrival ahead. This ensures you minimize the idle times and attend the seminar right after the first 2 steps.

I wrote this with the hope that people, especially drivers, would start thinking about doing the right thing. I know claiming your license this way is not the most convenient, the intent of this post is to minimize the inconvenience by being able to prepare well ahead. This guide will always be here whenever you are ready to steer away from your bribing ways. =)

Don't forget to always obey traffic rules. The usual penalty may be monetary and/or waste of time and effort but there will come a time that the penalty will be more than that.

SAFETY FIRST.

Cheers,