Yesterday afternoon, while going to the mall which is only a 6-7 minute ride by motorcycle, I was pulled over by a police traffic enforcer at a u-turn area. Ironically, last time I went to this mall, I had turned 3 blocks earlier in a "no u-turn" area, and if I would have done that again (broken the law), I wouldn't have been pulled over at all.
Anyway, apparently the Land Transport Office (LTO) pushed through a law that made it illegal to drive a motorcycle with exposed toes this past January--I was pulled over for wearing sandals on the motorcycle. As I have already experienced (different story that happened in Baguio), in the Philippines the police take your license and replace it with a ticket until you go and pay the fine at which point you get a receipt which you then take to a different office and can finally exchange that for your license. So the officer took my license and after describing what I did wrong, he began to explain what I would need to do to get it back. Similar to the process above, except that I would need to go to my embassy for them to verify that I am here legally (because I was supposed to have my passport), and after that I would need to go to the police station, etc. The problem is that it takes 1-2 hours each way (depending on traffic) to go to the embassy and police station in Makati by bus, and I wouldn't be able to ride the motorcycle because I wouldn't have my license.
After asking if there was any possibility of just getting a warning (because I didn't know that it was illegal) and keeping it off the books, he said that he could give me a warning, let me keep my license, and handle all the processing of the paperwork for me in Makati (therefore saving me the hassle of going there) if I just paid him half of the PhP1,000 (approximately USD 23) fine right now; a not-so-subtle attempt to acquire a bribe.
Because I didn't want to encourage this sort of behavior I really didn't want to pay it, so I decided to act oblivious to the fact that it was a bribe. I agreed, and he gave me back my license.
Then, in front of all the traffic (Commonwealth Ave is very busy, especially at this time) I took out my wallet and began to conspicuously and slowly search for cash. After I found and counted my 500 pesos (approximately 11 USD), I held it out really openly and he sort of walked away from it. And then after I let my arm fall, he started to come back and I raised my arm and tried to hand it to him again. And then he just said something frustrated and told me to go. And I did.
So I ended up paying neither a ticket nor a bribe, and I still have my license. Score.
Kyle +1, Corruption 0.