Bambi Eloriaga-Amago
I’ve been renewing my driver’s license for nearly two decades now and this is the first time I’ve encountered erroneous printing on it. Last January, when I applied for renewal at the Paranaque City LTO (Land Transportation Office,) I was told to come back after three to four months to claim the card. Since we were going to the LTO to get the car registered last April 8, I decided to try my luck and see if my license card was ready for releasing.
I actually was not hopeful, plastered on the windows were big “No license cards available” signs and notices that card releasing was only for those who renewed theirs in 2015. Still, I saw no harm in asking and inquired from the Releasing Officer if my card was there. Lo and behold, it was!
My happiness, however, proved to be short-lived. As we were driving away, I thought of checking my card. As luck would have it, there seemed to be a typographical error with my middle name. My husband, who was driving, quickly made a U-turn. Now I know how Mr. Herman Flores felt. He waited a year for his license, only for it to say he hadn’t been born yet. Well I only had to wait three months for mine—and mine sported an error in the name, not date—but I could still feel an affinity for the guy’s predicament.
But back to my story. When we got back to the LTO, I hurried over to the guy manning the Customer Relations Desk. I was told that they had changed suppliers and that the software used by their new supplier prevents them from editing the inputted data. So what I needed to do was to apply for a replacement card and to accomplish that, I needed to submit a notarized affidavit of discrepancy as well as an NSO (National Statistics Office)-issued birth certificate, and pay a fee of 393 pesos.
The customer relations officer further explained that I shouldn’t have any problems if I get caught for traffic violations. However, I wouldn’t be able to use the erroneous license for identification and validation purposes.
As best as I can recall, I took care in writing down all my information on their forms. They didn’t ask me to verify the data they inputted it onto the computer, either. And if you look closely at the typo, my correct middle name starts with an “E,” it’s pretty hard to mistake an “E” for an “O.” With sloppy handwriting, you could probably mistake an “E” for an “F” or a “B” or even a “T,” but an “O” seems unlikely. If I had to guess, the error probably happened when they encoded the handwritten forms into their computer database. Why then should we have to shell out hard-earned cash—not to mention suffer inconveniences—for a mistake we didn’t commit?
