LTO chief Jay Art Tugade
MANILA, Philippines — The Land Transportation Office (LTO) is eyeing to address the backlog in issuing driver’s licenses by January next year.
In a memorandum dated Dec. 9, LTO chief Jay Art Tugade instructed the agency’s regional and district offices nationwide to “completely address” the backlogs no later than Jan. 15, 2023.
Earlier this month, the LTO said that the driver’s license backlog of around 300,000 was reduced to 92,000, as it vowed to expedite the issuance of the remaining license cards.
According to the memo, the shortage was due to the lack of functional laser engravers and ongoing repairs of the defective units.
The policy said clients could be referred to the nearest or most accessible LTO office that has working laser engravers, and they should also be informed that they could go through the end-to-end process, which included capturing of biometrics in offices but without the printing and issuance of license cards.
Last week, the agency said it would resolve the backlogs on the issuance of driver’s licenses and motorcycle license plates “at the soonest possible time,” as regional offices were instructed to look for licensing centers and driver’s license renewal offices with fully functional laser engravers.
“This can serve as a stop-gap measure for the meantime while we await the repairs of defective laser engravers to be completed. Also, informing the public, which office to go to for driver’s license issuance and renewal prevents confusion and further inconvenience to them,” Tugade said.
The LTO chief noted that they were informed that vital parts for the repair of laser engravers were already available at the Bureau of Customs.
“We need to put them in one by one to the machines and evaluate them. As for the timeline, we are looking at fixing the machines by February of next year,” Tugade said.
Out of the 12 million backlogs for motorcycle license plates, 9.4 million will be replaced with the bigger, readable and color coded new design in compliance with the Motorcycle Crime Prevention Act.
The new motorcycle license plate is also made up of durable aluminum substrate material that has reflectorized background and security features.