Manila City Hall — Attraction in Manila

No free or paid parking at the city hall (weird). Be careful of scammers and dealing with the city hall officers.

I went to Manila City Hall today to claim my driver's license which was confiscated after an attempt to take a U-turn last Friday. The ticket says that it will expire in 5 working days. It means that I should claim my license within 5 working days before it expires. So, I went to Manila City Hall today which is a Monday and technically the 1st of 5 working days. The officer in the city hall asked me what I was going to do and when I told him I'm going to claim my license, he said he'll check if it's there now. He came back after a few minutes and said that it wasn't there. After discussing the situation with him, he finally told me that I can go to the traffic bureau located on the 3rd floor and get assistance to tell the police officer who issued the traffic ticket to me and confiscated my ID to surrender it as soon as possible today, so I won't have to waste time going there and be absent at work again. So, I went to the 3rd floor and looked for the Manila Traffic Bureau office to get their assistance to resolve the matter - contact the police officer and tell him to surrender the confiscated license immediately. However, they just told me that the license wasn't there yet and that the police officer hasn't surrendered it yet. They didn't even apologize or tried to help. Instead, there was a woman who looked for me and claimed to be able to speak in Japanese and told me that she can process the matter for me and have it delivered to me. Of course I didn't want any hassle anymore and I don't want to be absent from work again so I just wanted her to give me a proof of assurance that once I pay the fee, I won't have to pay another fee again and that I will surely receive my license back as she promises. However, she told me that she can only give a receipt as soon as they see my license. So, I declined her offer. She even said that she doesn't like dealing with me and that she's just doing me a favor and I'm giving her that attitude. Luckily, another guy helped and told me that I can ask the other office to contact the officer who gave me the ticket. When I went to the officer in charge of the radio, she said she can only contact their own officers but not traffic police, so she referred me to another woman who handles traffic police records. That woman just gave me the mobile number of the police but said she doesn't have anything she can use to call that number. I called the police officer then he said in an angry voice that he has already surrendered all of the IDs he has confiscated. That's when I found out they were just hiding my driver's license. I told the officer on the phone to speak to the man who was assisting me and the man who was assisting me went inside the office of those people who said my license hasn't been surrendered yet and he told them to encode it immediately. It was just a minute when he went inside and told me that I can now just pay the fine then have the O.R. photocopied then submit the copy back to them and I finally got my license...

I was there to pay the P 2-K traffic violation "ticket:" obstructing a pedestrian lane last 3/13/2021 along eastbound Quirino Blvd. intersecting Taft Ave., but only halfway actually in order to prevent the bikers from slowing me down as I came from dinner at Café Adriatico in Ermita.

Anyway, the line was long enough under the sweltering heat. I didn't know that it was the wrong one as I noticed the people in front of me were handing over small slips to 3 guys (no idea of what those documents were). One of those people holding a yellow pad instructed me to head for the window counter. A guard at the entrance directed me to a certain "Angel" in the counter office. The latter then pointed me to the OVR (I didn't ask what those letters stand for.). The guy in that office helped me as I wasn't aware of logging on the website as shown on the document written in Filipino which I could barely understand. I went back to the same window counter for Angel who charged me P 40 as "convenience fee" (sounding like a dirty tip) & who led me to compensate for the ticket at another counter across hers. I asked Angel for the change after giving her P 50, but she apparently ignored me for some reason.

This whole experience was a lot worse than that at the MMDA in Nuevo...

The Manila City Hall (Filipino: Bulwagan ng Lungsod ng Maynila) is the official seat of government of the City of Manila, located in the historic center of Ermita, Manila. It is where the Mayor of Manila holds office and the chambers of the Manila City Council is located.[2] It was originally intended to be a part of a national government center envisioned by Daniel Burnham in the 1900s. Although the dream plan was not fully implemented, some buildings for the proposed government center were constructed, including the Old Legislative Building (now the National Museum of Fine Arts), and the Agriculture and Finance Buildings (presently the National Museum of Anthropology and National Museum of Natural History).

The building sits on a trapezoidal shape of the lot in between the Legislative and Post Office buildings. Due to the monotony of the building envelope, one cannot distinguish the principal facade from the main entrance properly. The south entrance has a balcony emphasized by three arches resting on Corinthian columns while the north rear has the same design treatment with the east and west sides, but has pediments all throughout and a tall, hexagonal clock tower...