LTO plate-making plant to operate 24 hours to address backlog

The Land Transportation Office on East Avenue, Quezon City. (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)

MANILA, Philippines — The Land Transportation Office (LTO) vehicle plate-making plant will shift to a 24-hour operation schedule so it can address its backlog, officials told a House of Representatives panel on Tuesday.

During the hearing of the House committee on transportation, LTO Property Section Head Clarissa Ogsimer said that after the plate-making plant has finished all its maintenance works, the production will shift to a 24-hour operation, increasing the daily output from 38,000 plates to 48,600 plates.

Currently, the plant is producing around 28,000 plates per day, but boosting it to 38,000 will mean that the agency can cover its 12.50 million backlog in plates by the third quarter of 2025.  The timeline could be shorter if LTO achieves its goal of 48,600 plates per day.

“Our recommendation to address the backlogs on the vehicle plates: to accelerate production, LTO will shift to a 24-hour operation.  The plant will operate on a three-shift model, the overall capacity will increase from 38,000 to 48,600 plates per day or a 27.9 (percent) increase in plant productivity,” Ogsimer said.

“This shift will enable the agency to complete the production of the entire backlog before the end of the second quarter of 2025.  We plan to also to train local personnel to maintain robots and embossing machines, and fast track the procurement of maintenance services to ensure continuous operation,” she added.

If the 24-hour operation schedule is in place, Ogsimer said 29.7 percent of the backlog could be addressed by mid-2024, and 70.7 percent by the end of the year.

“Given a 24-hour plant production operation, the agency can produce 3.7 million or 29.7 percent of the total backlog plates by mid-2024, and 8.8 million or 70.7 percent of the backlog plates by the end of 2024,” she explained.

According to Ogsimer’s presentation, LTO last August 2023 had a backlog of 10,448,288 motorcycle plates and 3,598,066 motor vehicle plates — for a total of 14,046,353 plates — before winning bidder Trojan-Tonnjes Philippines supplied the agency with blank plates.

Since September 2023, 1,292,921 motorcycle plates and 204,542 motor vehicle plates from the backlog have been released.

This means LTO has cleared 1,537,445 plates from its backlog.

However, LTO still needs to finish 9,115,367 motorcycle plates and 3,393,542 motor vehicle plates — for a total of 12,508,909.

LTO chief and Assistant Secretary Vigor Mendoza II clarified that they have no backlog in terms of newly-purchased motor vehicles, noting that the 3.393 million figure represents old cars that are using old plates.

“Mr. Chair, just to highlight, sa motorcycle plates, Mr. Chair, we have a backlog of over nine million plates.  For motor vehicles, the backlog represents replacements of the green plates to the new ones.  But as far as current usage is concerned, we do not have backlogs anymore as far as motor vehicles are concerned,” Mendoza explained to committee chair and Antipolo 2nd District Rep. Romeo Acop.

The committee held a hearing to be briefed by the LTO regarding their programs, particularly their backlog on plates and the issues with the driver’s license card shortage.

Plate backlog has been a problem hounding the agency as there are vehicles registered as early as 2012 — over ten years or two administrations ago — that have not obtained their new plates.

In 2022, LTO said that it would need around P6.8 billion to address the huge backlog.  A year before that, LTO said they had a backlog of 2.561 million pairs of replacement plates.

The backlog has been reduced but last July, the Commission on Audit (COA) noted in July 2022 that over 1.7 million license plates for automobiles — which motorists paid in 2015 — have not been delivered by LTO yet.

READ: LTO fails to deliver 1.7 million license plates paid by motorists in 2015 – COA 

COA said the replacement plates are worth a total of around P808 million.