LTO sees end of driver’s license card shortage

INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — The Land Transportation Office (LTO) may finally see relief from its shortage of plastic driver’s license cards following a Court of Appeals (CA) decision to lift the writ of preliminary injunction for the delivery of around three million plastic cards.

In a statement on Monday, the LTO said that at least one million plastic cards were delivered to its office after the lifting of the writ of preliminary injunction issued by a Quezon City Regional Trial Courtin October of last year.

 This injunction was filed by the losing bidder, Allcards Inc.against Banning Plastic Card Inc., the winning bidder tasked with supplying about 5.2 million plastic cards.

“We admire and respect the wisdom of the justices of the Court of Appeals in their decision to lift the writ of preliminary injunction,” LTO chief Vigor Mendoza II said.

“Even before, we have been arguing that public interest must always prevail over business interest and in this case, the CA clearly saw the soundness and validity of the arguments we presented through the Office of the Solicitor General,” he added.

Following the CA decision, Mendoza further said that he has already tasked LTO officials to coordinate with Banner Plastic Card Inc. for the immediate delivery of the plastic cards.

He also noted that the LTO will come up with a new schedule of release of plastic card-printed driver’s licenses “in the soonest possible time.”

According to the agency, the CA ruling will help alleviate the backlog of plastic cards for driver’s licenses by the second half of 2024.

The backlog stands at over 4.1 million cards as of the end of March 2024, it added.

Mendoza had previously said that the LTO required at least 6.5 million plastic cards to meet the regular demand for 2024 and an additional 2.6 million to address the backlog from the previous year.

In January of this year, a private group offered to donate four million plastic cards to the LTO but the agency decided to turn it down to pave the way for the crafting of guidelines for donations from the transportation department.