National Highway Robbery In Barretto

The crocodiles that operate the LTO/PNP roadblock in Barrio Barretto seem to have widened their extortion activities against motorists.

They usually just look for people not wearing seatbelts, including tourists to the area, who they then extort. I've also seen them shaking down truck drivers.

They stopped us recently for having painted our vehicle. They said it is illegal to paint your vehicle from its original color. We noted that we had followed LTO regulations in doing the painting and had our Certificate of Registration updated in order to reflect the new color. We showed them up our updated CR with the correct color.

They then threatened to seize the vehicle! Our driver diffused the situation by negotiating the bribe down to 100 pesos. This is what visitors to the tourist businesses along the beach in Subic have to expect: shark attacks on land, not in the ocean.

[The Subic Bulletin] The main target of the roadblocks is usually unregistered vehicles, but we also had an experience when they pulled up the car I was in on my birthday, I had been drinking and they accused me of being drunk! This would normally be acceptable except that I was a passenger not driver in the vehicle and the driver had not drunk anything that day. When they said "sir, we think your drunk" I replied "Isn't that why he's the one driving?" (pointing to the driver).
I didn't know there was a law against being an intoxicated passenger. We know how you feel.