LTO’s new license plate program stinks, says solon

A CONGRESSMAN urged the Land Transportation Office (LTO) to stop its new vehicle plates program, calling it a racket and a “stinking” program that only favors a contractor but burdens the riding public.

“This entire program is not only illegal and a financial mess but a logistical disaster resulting in delayed delivery of the new car plates by the ‘favored contractor’ who manufactures them abroad,” Isabela Representative Rodolfo Albano III said in a statement on Tuesday.

The P3.8-billion contract with joint venture Power Plates Development Concepts Inc. and Dutch firm J. Knierem BV-Goes for the new license plates was inked as early as 2013. But the LTO and the Department of Transportation and Communications formally released the new license plates just this January to replace the old and existing 16 million vehicle plates.

The new license plates, valid until 2017, have a black and white design, tamper-resistant locks and screws and reflectorized sheeting.

Each license plate costs P450 for four-wheeled vehicles and P120 for tricycles and motorcycles.

Albano said the program is only a “milk and bilk racket” and is unnecessary because the old vehicle plates are still useable.

He added that there is a loss to the economy because the new license plates could have been manufactured in the country but the LTO opted to choose the favored contractor that produces it abroad.

“This LTO program stinks.  Why did the LTO allow the new vehicle license plates to be manufactured abroad by the ‘favored’ contractor, Power Plates Development Concepts Inc. and J. Knieriem BV Goes or JKG, when these vehicle plates could be competently produced locally?” Albano asked.

“But the most serious disservice to millions of vehicle owners are delays in the release of the license plates which cause them to go back to the LTO after paying for car registrations to claim the new car plates,” he added.

He also questioned the quality of the plates, noting that the media has reported plates being bent when the vehicles cross flooded streets.

The lawmaker added that the new security feature bar code is useless because the LTO does not have a bar code reader. The bar code also supposedly does not contain the information of the vehicle owner.

“One motorist complained how his new license plates bent as he waded through knee-high floods in Quezon City saying that the water bouncing back from the radiator was enough to bend the plates, which he says never happened to his old plates,” Albano said.

Albano found it ludicrous that the LTO vowed to replace the deformed plates if they were defective. “Kitang kita na ang ebidensiya, nagpapalusot pa,” he said.