LTO warns of supply woes (again) after court stopped license card deal

The Land Transportation Office (LTO) will ask a Manila court to reconsider its recent order stopping the agency’s driver’s license card supply project, as it warned that the ruling may adversely affect motorists, including Filipino drivers working or seeking employment abroad.

LTO spokesperson Jason Salvador noted that the ruling came at a time when LTO efforts to address a supply backlog of 1.3 million cards were already “normalizing.”

“We will exhaust all legal remedies and we’re hoping that this will be resolved soon before we run out of supplies so as not to hamper our operations and not to affect the lives of our Filipino drivers,” LTO spokesperson Jason Salvador said on Thursday.

Judge Daniel Villanueva of the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 49 issued the writ of preliminary injunction against the project on Oct. 1,  citing “compelling prima facie evidence.”

In its order, the court cited the testimony of LTO finance chief Irenea Nueva during a hearing on Aug. 25, where she said she would not have recommended the approval of the project—funded through the maintenance, operating and other expenses (MOOE)—if she knew that it included the purchase of capital equipment.

“What appears to be a contract for services, which may qualify it to be funded by MOOE, was in fact (a contract) for the purchase of computers and printers,” the court said.

The petition questioning the LTO deal was filed by Randy Bareng, who described himself as a lawyer from Manila, a taxpayer and holder of a driver’s license card. Named as respondents were the LTO and the bids and awards committee of the Department of Transportation and Communications, including Assistant Secretary Alfonso Tan Jr., the LTO chief.

“The respondents are hereby enjoined from proceeding with the bidding, awarding, contract signing, initial payment, further payments, implementation and action, at whatever stage, under the project contract,” the court order said.

Salvador warned that “if the supplier thinks that they won’t be getting any payment soon, they might stop supplying us with the cards and that will really hamper our operations.”

It would particularly affect Filipinos hired as drivers abroad because they are required to present their driver’s license cards from the Philippines, he added.

The LTO license card shortage started in 2013 when the Commission on Audit disallowed payments to the previous supplier, Amalgamated Motors Philippines Inc., for lack of a proper contract.

The agency started issuing driver’s license cards in August under a P336-million contract with AllCards Plastics Inc. for 5 million cards in one year.

The Manila court noted that the issue raised in Bareng’s petition was similar to that of the LTO’s car plates project, which the COA disallowed for failing to adhere to procurement procedures and for being awarded without a budget allotment.

The court said the preliminary injunction it issued was not a judgment on the merits of the case as other issues raised in the petition needed to be threshed out in a trial. “The court is not prepared, at this juncture, to form an opinion as to whether there was rigged bidding. Having said that, it did not escape the attention of the court that there appeared to be the presence of certain ‘badges of suspicion.’”

The petition alleged that the original brochure submitted by the winning bidder, AllCards, presented printers with specifications for 300 dots per inch (dpi), but the respondents modified the brochure two days after the opening of the bid to “insert” an entry for a printer with 600-dpi capability.

The petition also said the project evaded scrutiny from the Department of Budget and Management by making it a one-year contract when it was supposedly designed for extension and negotiation.

The court set the next hearing on Dec. 2.