By Joseph Bernard A. Marzan
The head of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) in Western Visayas expressed optimism on Friday, March 21, that the agency can finally begin clearing its decade-long backlog of motorcycle plates starting next month.
LTO-Western Visayas Regional Director Gaudioso Geduspan acknowledged the persistent problem of undistributed motor vehicle plates and confirmed that their central office has now authorized the regional office to begin distribution.
He said motorcycle owners may now visit LTO offices to claim their assigned plate numbers if they have not received them.
“The plates are here,” Geduspan told Daily Guardian on Air via Aksyon Radyo-Iloilo.
“The plates that we will be distributing are from the backlog of motorcycles. These are the cascading plates—those that have remained stacked for a long time. When you visit our office, you’ll see these stacks of plates.”
“We already have clearance. We requested that if the plate numbers have been assigned to new motorcycles, these could be reallocated to our backlog. Finally, we secured that clearance from the central office and can distribute them by April,” he added.
Geduspan said that although the agency has funds for new plates, LTO-6 is prioritizing the thousands of backlogged plates, which date as far back as 2014.
“Our supply is supposed to last until June, but our central office leadership found it more efficient to distribute it to backlog owners since it’s already available,” he said.
He emphasized that license plates are not only required by law but also essential for public safety and crime prevention.
“First, it gives the motor vehicle its identity,” he said.
“Second, there’s a huge crime prevention aspect. In the past, we couldn’t identify riding-in-tandem suspects because their motorcycles had no plates. We couldn’t trace the owners or determine where they came from.”
Geduspan added that the LTO central office may declare sufficiency of motorcycle plates by June.
Once declared, the regional office will strictly enforce motor vehicle regulations, including penalizing owners who fail to secure license plates.
“Motorcycle owners have to get their plates soon because some people tend to delay,” he said.
“Some wait at home and expect to be notified. There must be a proactive effort to ask their dealers or the LTO if the plates are already available.”
DRIVER’S LICENSES
Meanwhile, Geduspan said the regional office currently has a sufficient supply of plastic cards for driver’s licenses.
However, the challenge lies in their defective laser engraver used to print the cards.
Their interim solution is to coordinate with functioning engravers at other LTO offices, either through office chiefs or direct visits by applicants.
He said the issue is nearly resolved as the LTO central office is already bidding for new laser engravers.
“When a laser engraver breaks down, we conduct ‘batching,’ where the office chief prints the licenses at the nearest working office and returns them for distribution,” Geduspan explained.
“Clients can also be directed to the nearest licensing office to claim their cards directly.”
“The supply issue has been resolved,” he added.
“We have PHP900 million, almost PHP1 billion, allocated for the procurement of new laser engravers. The bidding is already underway. Once delivered, the central office will conduct a dry run before distributing the machines to the regions.”
