Before I proceed, let us first ask this question: Is this piece necessary?

I want to get this out of the way because many readers are convinced that I just have an ‘old beef’ with James Deakin or that I’m just envious of his popularity.

This is about the traffic violation committed by the son of James on December 18, 2025. A violation that is so ordinary you can’t help but wonder about the pandemonium we’ve all witnessed for over a week now.

For those who do not know, I used to be the editor-in-chief of Top Gear Philippines, while James was—for a time—the EIC of C! And yes, I will admit that there were several instances in the past when I called him out on motoring-related issues. So, it is very easy to accuse me of harboring a “grudge” against the guy.

On top of that, someone forwarded to me a Reddit comment saying that I was merely miffed at James for having “exposed” my “wrong info” in 2016 that resulted in a cyberbullying case being filed against me during my time with TGP. First, that was not my fault—the info had come from the Manila Police District (which was also reported by newspapers and TV news programs). You can read about it here. Second, at no point did I connect it with James; he was not the person who “exposed” it. It was a developing story that unraveled on our Facebook page.

You will find this hard to believe, but I don’t feel an iota of hate or jealousy toward anyone right now. As a matter of fact, it has been a long time since I last commented on anything that involved James. I can enumerate three things that have happened between us in the last five years to prove we have long buried the hatchet: One, he contributed to my medical funds when I suffered an aneurysm attack in 2020; two, I gave him a Christian book in 2021 after my decision to go back to the Lord; and three, VISOR helped him recover his Facebook page when it was hacked last year. Apologies for having to share these with you, but I need to establish this side of our relationship—or else everything I will tell you here may seem colored.

So, yes, my history with James makes it look like I will never be fond of him. However, I can confidently say that I’m officially past that stage. I will be accountable to God if I start another round. And frankly, I’ve lost all taste for pontificating. Revealing the truth—I now understand—is not my job. It is God’s.

But is such an online altercation necessary here? Did the LTO make the father-and-son’s life so hard in handling the issue?

The first day (January 6) that James’s post went super viral, we were completely silent (the post was uploaded on January 5 at 7:14pm). I thought really hard about whether VISOR had to join the discussion. I felt there was no need to participate.

(Not wanting to waste your time, I will no longer narrate the incident. Instead, I will refer the few uninformed readers to this clear account by Vince Pornelos of AutoIndustriya.)

And then I saw the LTO press conference on January 7, where LTO chief Markus Lacanilao corrected James’s claim that the vehicle his son was driving had papers.

Even so, I was still struggling to decide whether to put out a comment. My first question to God was: “If I’ve shaken hands with someone, am I already disqualified from calling him out even if the occasion warrants it?”

Which explains our initial post about this:

Should I even name James? Based on the comments, I didn’t even have to. Pretty much everyone had seen his Facebook post and watched the LTO’s reply.

If VISOR looked like a “hater” by next posting a “not-so-serious” poll, that’s because I truly felt that there was no logical reason to call out the LTO here. Everything would have been easily ironed out without vilifying a government agency that was currently working to address its many problems. The agency’s image is so rotten that anyone could succeed in winning an online altercation with it.

But is such an online altercation necessary here? Was James (or his son) a victim? Did the LTO (or its personnel) make the father-and-son’s life so hard in handling the issue? Did the entire country have to be notified about an ordinary traffic violation? Was there any injustice here at all?

The answer is NO.

The truth is that he didn’t need to broadcast the whole thing. This would have been over by now—with his son probably retrieving his license with no further Show Cause Order (SCO) for the other parties (including BYD)—if he had just dealt with the matter privately, like a normal citizen.

In James’s first post, two errors immediately stood out:

“For context: Reckless Driving isn’t just a heavier fine—it can also be a criminal offense under Philippine law that goes on permanent record. It requires ‘willful or wanton disregard for safety.’ A new driver making an improper lane change at very low speed doesn’t meet that standard. What my son did was a traffic violation. It happens. Imagine if what the officer wrote affects his future employment, insurance, and travel. That’s not ‘following the rules’—that’s creating them on the spot.”

And also:

“I point out what I thought was obvious: ‘The LTO already has the plate number, make, model, and registered owner on the ticket. What does the OR/CR add? If this was about safety or accountability, you’d have everything you need.’”

Let’s talk about these for a bit.

The violation his son was cited for was “reckless driving.” That was the correct violation. No mistake here by the LTO. If anything, an additional second count of reckless driving should have been reflected on the ticket besides crossing a double solid yellow line, because driving an unregistered vehicle is, well, reckless. Which brings us to the second point.

The BYD vehicle that his son was driving had no legal papers, according to the LTO. Before we discuss anything else, these need to be asked: (1) Why was his son driving an unregistered vehicle, and—indeed—(2) why was his son driving a media test unit?

In fairness to James, it was entirely possible that he really didn’t know that the vehicle had no papers. Still, the LTO press conference showed that he was wrong in calling out the agency for demanding to see some documents.

To recap, James’s first post contained at least two errors: First was mistakenly assuming that “reckless driving” was criminal in nature (it is not, unless, of course, you cause an incident while doing the violation and you escape); and second was claiming that the vehicle had proper documents.

Why am I stressing this now? Because this was the context of our initial comment:

“When you regularly demand stadium-level praise for being right, you gotta be ready for the same energy when you’re wrong.”

Yep, this is the very post that James’s fans and supporters have been foisting on us since the Department of Transportation succumbed to the whims of the influencer. If you recall, the DOTr gave in to the “request” for adjusting the 15 calendar days to 15 working days in settling a traffic fine. I see that everyone is now celebrating this like it is a monumental victory for motorists. But is it? A colleague sent me his opinion about this: “The workdays for a suspended license will extend the driving days of those charged with DUI. Think about it.”

But back to my main point: Our you-gotta-be-ready-for-the-same-energy-when-you’re-wrong post was about James’s glaring errors in his first post. Errors that—had he caught them before posting the gripe—we wouldn’t even be talking about right now.

Of course, quite predictably, instead of apologizing to the LTO, he moved the goalposts. He next exclusively focused on the LTO’s onerous process of settling the penalty. But what was so onerous about their experience? He complained that the available days to settle the penalty were not adequate in accommodating their schedule (or their availability). He ranted about the “15 calendar days,” and insisted that it should have been “15 working days” instead. Anything to put the topic as far away as possible from the more significant angle, which was the unregistered vehicle that his son was driving.

Ordinary motorists knew that it was always “calendar days” and not “working days.” I should know. I was once late (by months) in claiming my confiscated license. I paid the total amount without even thinking of seeking a reprieve. To make their case even weirder, we need to note that James attempted to claim his son’s license on a Saturday. To borrow his favorite expression: Let that sink in.

What happened is bad. By kowtowing to James, the DOTr just proved how spineless it is. Whether it’s calendar days or working days, how does this improve things? They just made life easier for traffic violators. The DOTr and the LTO are already neck-deep in the public’s abominable estimation. By showing that they can’t even stand by a simple rule, how do you think people will regard them now? Tiklop sa influencers? Ganun ba yun?

This is a sad development for Philippine motoring. Not only did we allow an influencer to change the narrative of his son’s clear violation, we even made him out to be a hero

Before wrapping this up, I want to mention Attorney Robby Consunji, the longtime president of the currently dormant Land Rover Club of the Philippines and my legal columnist when I was with Top Gear Philippines. Well-respected around the motoring community, he presently serves as a board trustee at Automobile Association Philippines as chairperson for government relations. This was the man approached by James for help (“Would you be able to refer me to someone in the LTO?”), and the person James later castigated in his narrative (“So you can imagine my surprise when I see Mr. Consunji on social media yesterday taking a stab at me saying that social media is not the venue to get these problems solved when I literally went to him first”).

Contrary to James’s story, Robby patiently guided James as to what the latter could do to properly go through the LTO’s process (I personally saw his messages). By the way, James’s sole concern when he approached Robby was the “reckless driving” violation. Again, he was under the impression that the violation was “a criminal offense under RA4136,” and he was very worried for his son.

Robby told James: “The ticketed driver must run the ordinary process. If the driver reaches a dead end, let me know so it can be looked into.” James replied that he’d go to the LTO on December 22 (“I’ll contest it on Monday”). He never did. Instead, he went on December 27 (Saturday) and was frustrated that the LTO was closed. This ultimately gave birth to James’s complaint about the “15 calendar days.”

So, you see, what we have here is a self-fashioned road safety advocate that doesn’t even know the definition of “reckless driving” and isn’t aware of the LTO’s working days. He wove a story that took several turns to make himself look good and the LTO look very, very bad. I don’t have a problem with James as a person; I have a problem with his storytelling.

If you check Robby’s Facebook account, it is a treasure trove of personal commentaries about motoring issues. He quietly works to improve the way motorists use the road. I dare say that he’s the real road safety advocate in our midst.

This is a sad development for Philippine motoring. Not only did we allow an influencer to change the narrative of his son’s clear violation, we even made him out to be a hero.