Ninoy Aquino

With 8 years on my tally card since the acquisition of my driver's license, I can't pride myself with an accident-free traffic experience but I do congratulate myself for not having the unpleasant experience of being apprehended due to some traffic violation.... until recently.

I have a total of 3 traffic violations so far, 2 of those are beating the red light (the most ambiguous traffic violation of all) and 1 is swerving (the next to impossibly ambiguous thing ever invented in traffic rules regulations).

So anyway, I was able to extract myself clean of my first two violations, but last monday, with a terrible traffic experience from office to work (which usually only takes 45 minutes on a very good day), that miserable Monday of mine was topped with a reckless-driving violation for beating that damn red light along Buendia, corner Taft avenue. The officer of whatever agency he's from, was ticketing me and there I was sweetly asking him why he had to take away my license when traffic violators should be paying their tickets thru metrobank. There he was, explaining things and rules in some alien language, so I pleaded guilty and asked for pardon since it was supposed to be my "first" violation ever! I ended up paying 500 pesos just so he'd let me off unscathed (and I swear to God, he really asked for it!)

I hate to bribe officers of the whatever agency they're from, but hell, I had a bad day, wincing every time my left leg felt pain with every step of the clutch from the 6-hr traffic drive earlier that morning.

So here I am, confessing that I am not at all a law-abiding citizen, and I apologize.