BAGUIO CITY – Some six hundred license plates of newly registered motor vehicles from the period July 1, 2016 to the present will be distributed by the Land Transportation Office (LTO) in the different district offices to address the agency’s rapidly increasing backlog that was accumulated for over five years now.
LTO Assistant Secretary Edgar Galvante, together with ranking officials of the Cordillera office of the Department of Transportation (DOTr-CAR) and LTO district officers, distributed the produced license plates to the different car dealers during simple turnover rites Friday at the DOTr-CAR compound to signal the availability of license plates for newly registered motor vehicles in the different parts of the region.\
“We will try to first produce the backlog of over eleven million lincense plates from July 1, 2016 to the present by the third quarter of 2018 before we will be able to stabilize and normalize the distribution of lincese plates to newly registered motor vehicles in the country,”Galvante stressed.
The LTO chief claimed the agency has made available some 231,000 license plates that will cover the backlog for the period July to December 2016 and by now, the license plates starting January 2017 will be the ones that will be produced and given to the car delaers for their clients.
However, Assistant Secretary Galvante claimed that license plates for motorcycles have been held in abeyance because the LTO is awaiting the outcome of the pending bill requiring motorcycles to be attached with bigger license plates for purposes of being visible to the public.
For the license plates of motor vehicles that were purchased and registered before July 1, 2016, he explained that the agency is still awaiting the resolutio that will be promulgated by the Commission on Audit (COA) regarding the controversial production of the license plates that was contracted out to a supplier before the LTO will make a decision to produce the additional backlog of at least 11 million license plates and counting.
LTO Law Enforcement Service Director Francis Ray Almora disclosed among the salient features of the new license plates produced by the agency include the qr code that contains details about the motor vehicle and the radio frequency identification (RF ID) which is reportedly laser incripted.
He added that with a qr cod reader, an individual can easily determine if a motor vehicle is what he is seeing or if it does not conform with the details of what is shown in the qr code, then he or she can immediately report the same to the nearest police station for possible apprension for validation of the motor vehicle.
Almaro claimed that by making available the qr code as one of the important feature of the motor vehicle, responsible citizens can help in the government’s all out campaign against the proliferation of colorum vehicles in the different parts of the country.
Further, the first letter of the new license plates corresponds with the region where the motor vehicle is registered that is why it will be easy for individuals to ascertain where such motor vehicles are registered by simply looking at the first letter of its license plate number.
By HENT
Banner Photo: NEW CAR PLATES – Land Transportation Office (LTO) Assistant Secretary Edgar Galvante (4th from left) hands over to a local car dealer the newly produced license plates for the registered motor vehicles from July 1, 2016 which signalled the availability of license plates in the different parts of the country. ROSALIA T. SEE
