Car registration every year is a painful process. It’s quite redundant, but you’ll need to do it because the law says that you need to do it. I have personally handled the vehicle registration of our family so I know the process by heart.
Every year, the LTO asks us for a stencil of the cars. So what I did was to make multiple stencils of all the cars (using the LTO forms) so that when the time came for that particular vehicle to be registered, I would simply pull it out from the file. Things changed a few years ago, I honestly didn’t understand it – but our driver told us that the LTO people are the ones who need to stencil the vehicles right before you register. This he said entailed a different from AND another fee. FINE – since we can’t skip that process, then go ahead – right?
For years we have had a *suki* smoke emission testing company that we go to that is nearby. We go to that particular shop because they work very fast – and because we’ve developed a relationship with them through the years. THEN things changed again a few years ago – there was a ruling that you NEED to have your smoke emission checked nearby the LTO office that you will register your vehicle. This was such a hassle for us because the locations of the LTO office where register is a distance from one another. Since transferring the LTO office where we register is another painful process, we decided to just maintain that LTO office and switch smoke belching companies.
Imagine, we would be spending the WHOLE day in the LTO office just waiting for the documents. We would go very early – to have the emission test done, then stencil (this will depend on the person doing the stencil-ing, if he was only one and there are about 25 vehicles inline – what time can he finish, right?) and then wait a long looooong time for the papers to get moving and to pay for the fee and finally getting the sticker (if there was any). To me personally, it’s such a waste of time – I mean, why not simple shorten the process, right? But well, that’s the bureucracy of the LTO. The frontline staff is very unhappy with their work, there is not simple production line – that you need to go back and forth from the window that received the documents, from the cashier to the claiming of the stickers (if any). When I observed this, I thought to myself – how disorganized! I mean why put the cashier on another end and make people go back and forth to it? It’s really crazy, honestly. I asked about it – and you know what I was told why the position of the cashier was on the end? Well, it’s because the cord of the machine (for the electric outlet) is SHORT! I don’t have words. I really don’t anymore. So I just sighed and waited. And when we were finally called – I was told, *NO sticker po* So we waited for nothing. This is repeated a number of times a year. And it is getting very frustrating.
A few weeks ago, when I learned that there was a resolution made by Sen. JV Ejercito on making the vehicle registration online, I was delighted. It was such a relief that law makers get to think of these things. Imagine a mother, who play so many roles – when will she have time to register her vehicle? She will need to to take a whole day leave from her work – that means she won’t get a salary that say since she’s absent. How about the stay at home mom who prepares the food and picks up the kids from school? Who will cook and pick up the kids? It’s really frustrating, I mean seriously – why can’t these things become much easier for all of us?
There are still many questions and revisions that need to be done, but the path is there, the idea is there – we should start, even with just one step for progress to happen. I am all for this movement, I am all for supporting this move.
I hope that with this, we can all move forward.
We need this.
Our country needs it.
Let’s do this not for us, but for the progress of our country.
