International man of mystery and motoring
I’m more thrilled than I should be about obtaining my Philippine International Driving Permit recently. You can get one from the Automobile Association of the Philippines (AAP). I needed one because I’m planning to do a little driving abroad soon. Plus, it adds to my growing stash of impressive, 2x2-inch photo IDs — official-looking items I can brandish like an FBI agent or MI4 operative whenever I need to get out of a jam.
As international IDs go, the Philippine International Driving Permit is a beaut. It’s printed on beige-gray bumpy paper, the same kind you can purchase at National Book Store to print up résumés, then subtly laminated to give it that special glossy feel. Your 2x2-inch photo is splashed (maybe “washed out” is more like it) on the front of the document, along with a lot of official-looking data and rubber-stamping. (My ID photo, incidentally, was obtained at a Photoline and, because I hadn’t bothered to wear a decent, ID-appropriate shirt, the Photoline people let me choose from several digital cut-and-paste wardrobe options that were then superimposed over my headshot on a computer. I could have gone with a black shirt with a white tie, but it seemed too Mafioso; thus the blue button-down shirt with the red necktie.)
The coolest thing about the International Driving Permit is that it allows me to drive in some 200 countries around the world. So, in my mind, I’m not just an International Man of Mystery; I’m also an International Man of Motoring.
Where can I drive? How about Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria? I can legally cruise around in the Bahamas or Barbados, check out the situation in Cuba, maybe even investigate driving conditions in Djibouti (don’t ask). My International Driving Permit is my passport to traffic jams and crazy cab drivers all over the globe. Yes, I can even visit Iraq and rent a car, if I can somehow get myself dropped into the country in a clandestine night operation (US citizens are banned from traveling there, for obvious reasons).
I can cruise the back roads and lush meadows of Ireland, or sport around San Marino, one of the smallest countries in the world; I can dash through Suriname, Togo, Liechtenstein, Sierra Leone or Upper Volta (obviously, these would all have to be separate trips); I might rev it up in Spain or Tajikistan, or do a couple McDonald’s drive-thru runs in Samoa. In our upcoming travels we plan to hit the autobahn, which makes my license 10 times cooler (though the eco-friendly little putt-putt I rent over there will most likely keep in the leftmost “grandma” lane).
In short, this is one powerful beige-gray document, and it’s good for one full year of unlimited foreign driving. But I’m not taking all this power lightly. As those of us granted such status understand all too well, the International Man of Motoring credo (“With power comes great responsibility — but you have to pay for your own gas”) is not to be trifled with. There are rules of the road, just as there are rules in life, and the AAP website makes it clear where I’m free to roam and where they might have to cut me loose like a spy out in the cold. According to the site: “A word of caution: Using a fake/spurious international driving permit may get you into serious trouble while traveling or working abroad. Penalties may range from stiff fines to deportation or even imprisonment.
“If you have any reason to doubt the authenticity of the PIDP issued to you,” the site continues, “please call or visit AAP immediately so we can establish the authenticity of your PIDP. If it turns out that you are in possession of a spurious PIDP… AAP can no longer help you if and when your spurious PIDP gets you into trouble abroad.”
Yup. That’s the cloak-and-dagger world of danger and deniability we AAP International Driving Permit holders live in.
What’s also interesting, to me, is that the permit doesn’t require you to be familiar with the rules of the road in any of the countries you plan to visit. Even for Japan and the UK, which have right-hand drive roadways, they don’t print large disclaimers on the license saying “IF YOU’VE NEVER DRIVEN ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE ROAD (WHILE SOBER) YOU MAY WANT TO THINK TWICE ABOUT STARTING HERE…” They just assume that anyone who you can throw a car into “drive” and turn a steering wheel is fit to navigate foreign roadways. It’s rather like tossing a chimpanzee an atom bomb, a stick of TNT and a hand grenade and asking him to juggle. There seems to be a belief that holding a driver’s license bestows mastery of some kind of tricky skill. But a quick peek at the roadways of Metro Manila will set anyone straight about the skill levels we’re talking about.
To obtain a permit, you must visit an AAP office, fill out some forms and wait about two hours until your number is called. Waiting with you will be dozens of Filipinos who are no doubt seeking jobs as drivers abroad. Obviously, it’s mostly professional drivers applying for these licenses. Some of the people waiting for their number to be called are going to Canada. Some are heading to Bahrain or Saudi Arabia. Most likely, though, all of them, on some weird, purely male level, entertain similar fantasies of being International Men of Mystery and Motoring.
I’m not a professional driver. My idea of a vacation does not usually include getting behind the wheel of a car in a foreign country; I prefer sleeping on a bus, usually way in the back, and being awoken gently when we arrive somewhere. But hey, I’m in this for the kicks.
If you visit the AAP office in the morning, you will probably sit through Wowowee playing on a mounted TV above the cashier desk. When your number is called, you will pay a grand fee of P1,800, pick up your permit, which is too bulky to fit inside a wallet (it’s roughly the size of a CD case), and walk away with your passport to adventure.
I’ve had a lot of different IDs printed up since living here in the Philippines: driver’s licenses, press passes, video rental cards, my Alien Certificate of Registration card, my student ID for University of the Philippines. None, however, seem as cool as this driving permit.
Of course, the AAP’s International Driving Permit does not allow you to drive around in the Philippines (you’ll have to go see an LTO fixer to get hooked up with a local license). But still, I couldn’t stop myself from flashing it the next time I hit the Jollibee drive-thru lane. It’s one impressive-looking document.
