Car Registration - Onli n da pilipins

I had my very first car in 1979, some 33 years ago. The above-photo is similar to what my first car was - a cream-colored 1966 Toyota Corolla four-door sedan.

It's been that long, too that I've been going to the Land Transportation Office (LTO) to renew the registration the registration of a vehicle. It was such a task then and and oftentimes it took the whole day. If one had a job or work, one had to take the day off (and forfeit a day's wage) just to complete the task of registering a car.

Since then, however, there have been some changes and improvements in the procedure. One that has definitely and positively changed and gave the motorists a big break was the adoption of a staggered (based on car-plate ending number) registration period. This has erased the frown on the faces of both the motorists and processors alike, and reduced if not totally eliminated the occasional sharp and sometimes nasty exchange of words between the registrants and the LTO employees, as well as the rare but sometimes violent altercation among the registrants themselves which usually results from elbowing each other while jockeying for position in front of that small registration window.

People have also learned to fall in line. This was complemented by the issuance of a customer-priority numbering and public address systems, that also eliminated that annoying relay of information by shouting (usually the last name or several names) of other people and the very public announcement of how much registration fee to be paid. Since the computerization of the process and the establishment of a database, a lot more service improvements have been effected. For sure, it is now less stressful than before.

But for God's sake, when will they ever hasten or totally eliminate the crazy process of "stenciling" the car's body and engine numbers! The car's engine is usually scalding hot. And those damn numbers seem to become unreachable if not totally hidden every year. The poor guy whose task it is is to "stencil" these numbers has actually adopted "improvements" of their own, which at best can just be considered improvisations rather than improvements. They've fashioned-out an extension of the pencil they're using. This extension allows them to "stencil" those dang numbers while avoiding being burned by the hot engine. And in this improvisation, the registration document is turned practically into a crumpled piece of paper because it has to be folded to a size which can go through those cramped and narrow spaces between the hot engine block and the car's chassis.

It truly is a puzzle why for more than three decades this procedure is still being done. I really hope they can do something to eliminate  this step of the procedure. Otherwise, we'll probably need to ask the car manufacturer that for the Filipinos' sake, they should put those chassis/body and engine numbers  on top of the hood for easy, safe and convenient "stenciling."

Is this another case of "onli in da pilipins?"