MMDA Traffic Enforcer Scam

The gullible me got caught more than a year ago for some arguable traffic violation.  I got caught turning right on the second lane of the North-bound EDSA to Shaw Blvd.  It was 8am in a Sunday morning and traffic is light except for the buses that prevented me from turning using the rightmost lane.  As soon as I turned using the second turning lane, I got flagged and told that I swerved.  It was a reckless violation that costs 500php.  (Wait a minute.  Why do we have a two-lane-wide right turn provision from EDSA to Shaw when you can't turn on the 2nd lane???)

I asked for a ticket, and the MMDA guy gave me one.  He also asked me to pay for the ticket so that he can give back my license already.  And so I thought I was doing well.  Since I got the ticket receipt, I thought it was OK.

When I got back home, however, I inspected my first ever ticket in my life and saw that only 200php was written on it.  Hmmm, I have some complaining to do.  I checked on MMDA to find out that I have no pending dues.  That, I thought meant the traffic enforcer remitted my payment fine.  But still he must have pocketed 300php of it. 

I went to the MMDA headquarters to file my complaints.  I thought I would do my country proud to try to do the right thing.  A few minutes there however dampened my desire to do just that.  It rained hard, and I don't have any idea how to proceed and the people there just seem so unhelpful.  Traffic adjudication takes too long that it's difficult to justify it with my precious time.

So I went home empty-handed, willing to forget about the traffic enforcer, curse him, and say goodbye to my traffic ticket and give up any hopes for MMDA. 

~~~

Until...  I tried renewing my license four days ago.  I found out I was on the alarm list.  The only possibility was that the cursed traffic enforcer didn't remit the payment after all.  I was wrong.  He didn't pocket 300php of it.  He pocketed everything, and gave me a ticket to boot (which was my fault, because I asked for it, wanting to do the right thing, and got kicked twice instead).