A Police Escort for Father Marc

Father Marc had a police escort home after Ash Wednesday services today.

I borrowed the car from Shelly today to go to the noon Ash Wednesday service at Holy Trinity. I had hoped we could go this evening, but Shelly always has a number of conference calls after work on Wednesday, and there was no way we'd get home from church in time for her calls, so I went at noon.

After the service, we were standing around chatting, and I offered them a ride. After a quick stop at a nearby shopping mall, we began winding our way through the streets of Manila, Marc in the front, directing me left and right towards their home, his wife in the back.

"Turn left at the next light," Marc said, "and then you'll turn right at the next light."

I made the left, merged smoothly into traffic, and heard a police siren behind me. A motorcycle cop pulled up beside me and blew his siren again. My mind raced, trying to figure out what traffic law I had broken. (I've been particularly careful while driving ever since having a run-in with Manila's finest after making an illegal turn onto a highway off ramp back in November. This was a non-blogged event due to my brazen -- and, I might add, successful -- attempt at police bribery.)

The thing is, I knew I hadn't broken any laws. He blew his siren again, and I said to Marc and Suzanne, "I wonder why he wants me to pull over? I didn't run any red lights. What did I do?"

Suzanne figured it out first: Manila has a traffic and pollution reduction scheme, where you're forbidden to drive in the city on certain days of the week, based on the last digit of your license plate number. Today is Wednesday, our tag ends in a five. That might explain why the cop was again blowing his siren and gesturing for me to stop.

"Shit!" I said. The fact that it was Wednesday hadn't even ocurred to me, despite it being, well, Ash Wednesday. Then I realized I had just said shit with a priest and his wife in the car.

I stopped the car, and the cop walked over.

"Today is Wednesday, your license plate ends in a five," he said. Suzanne was right.

Bobby told me last month that the traffic reduction scheme was only in affect during rush hour. It was only 1:30, so I said so to the cop.

"Not in Makati," he said. "There is no exception in Makati."

"Really?" I said. "I didn't know that." (I really didn't know that. I also know that ignorance of the law is no defense, but I was going to give it a shot.) Makati is Manila's central business district, and I assume he was telling me the truth, though I'll ask Bobby about it the next time I see him.

"Where are you going?" the cop asked. "You must leave Makati."

"I'm taking the Father home. Then I'm going home." It was the truth, of course, but I figured saying that taking the father home might be better than saying I was taking my friends home.

I'm not particularly proud of playing the "father" card, but I thought it might work in a country where 80 percent of the population is Catholic. Marc was wearing a collar, and Episcopalians do call their pastor "father," so it wasn't like I was lying. Besides, I still remember Pastor Randy telling me a story about how his collar once got him out of a ticket on Guam, a place with a similarly high percentage of Catholics.

"I'll escort you," the cop said. After getting the address from Marc, he pocketed my license and got back on his bike, leading us through Makati towards Marc and Suzanne's house.

It took only minutes before another motorcycle cop blew his siren at me. The first cop, our escort, pulled aside and said something to the second cop -- probably, "no poaching, he's mine" -- and the second cop disappeared.

A block from Marc's house, we stopped at a traffic light. Marc and Suzanne got out of the car, Marc stopped and said something to cop, and we pulled around the corner. The cop stopped again, walked back to me, and said, "we're one block from the highway. We'll turn left, then we'll pull over again, and I'll give you your license, and you'll pay your penalty."

Whew. I tried not to show my relief. I think the fine would probably only be 500 pesos, which is less than ten dollars, but it would also probably include a day at traffic school. While traffic school would probably result in an interesting blog entry, it would also be very inconvenient. I was glad that I would be "paying my penalty on the spot," rather than in traffic court.

(Now the cop and I both understand what's happening here. I know I'm not really paying the fine, but that I'm actually paying a bribe. I also happen to know that the going rate for a bribe is 100 pesos, but there was no way I was going to argue with him when he asked for 300 pesos. I may have been able to bargain the bribe down, but there was no way the two or three dollars I might have saved were worth the risk of the cop changing his mind and giving me a summons to appear in traffic court. I have mixed feelings on bribing a cop. Bribery is a bad thing, certainly, but it's also part of life here. And it was well worth it to me to not have to go to traffic school. But it's still a bad thing.)

We pulled around the corner, he gave me my license, I paid my fine, and I was on my way home. That's two encounters I've had with cops in five months, which equals the number I've had at home since I started driving 22 years ago. Hmm.

When I first arrived here, I regularly complained to Shelly about how drivers in the Philippines make a two-lane road into a three-lane road, and how they turn left from the right lane and how, when there's not much traffic, they consider traffic lights to be mere suggestions, rather than commands. A few weeks ago, though, as we were sitting in heavy traffic that was only using two lanes. "Come on," I said, honking the horn. "There's room for three lanes here! Move over!" I realized I drive like a Filipino.

And bribing a traffic cop? I think that just confirms it.