Land Transportation Office (LTO) Chief Teofilo Guadiz's remarks about the agency's information technology (IT) provider has caught the attention of House Deputy Minority Leader Bagong Henerasyon (BH) Party-list Rep. Bernadette Herrera.
A statement from Herrera's office Monday, Aug. 8, said that, since 2018, the LTO’s IT systems provider has been Dermalog Identification Systems, a German company with a 27-year track record in biometrics and data security, with operations in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and India.
Dermalog replaced Stradcom Corporation, which held the billions-worth contract from 1998 to 2016.
In a recent media interview, LTO Chief Teofilo Guadiz lambasted Dermalog’s services, and went on to say that for him, “The old IT system provides a better solution,” and that “Stradcom is welcome (to bid for their old contract).”
“An agency head that threatens to terminate a contract, and then publicly commends a possible bidder, may be considered a case of impropriety – but let’s give Asec. Guadiz the benefit of the doubt," Herrera said.
"Before anything else, however, we must examine if the commitments to Dermalog are being honored, and if that is the reason why their operations have encountered problems,” noted the lady solon, who has mentioned a possible House inquiry.
Herrera has said that she intends to deliver a privilege speech to outline the possible adverse results of the LTO’s “seemingly hasty” reaction on its IT provider situation.
The House leader reckoned that this course of action may “set the agency backwards by several steps”, and “ultimately result in increased costs and longer, more difficult transactions for the motoring public".
“During my consultations with key stakeholders, they were very appreciative of the fact that the current IT provider of the LTO no longer charges interconnectivity fees for motor vehicle registration, driver’s license transactions, and law enforcement and traffic adjudication service transactions, unlike before,” Herrera said.
“The LTO is claiming that the current system has glitches, but there are reports from the field which indicate that these glitches are actually due to human interventions and manual overrides done by agency personnel,” the lawmaker further stated.
Based on the stipulations of the LTO-Stradcom phase-out agreement last 2016, the LTO has full and complete rights of ownership of the database of motorists, thus Stradcom is required to turn over this information to the agency’s new IT contractor.
But LTO sources allegedly told Herrera that Stradcom has yet to comply with this provision, despite the fact that the agency has paid them a total of P7.53 billion during the last four-year phase of their contract.
"This absence of a database is allegedly one of the key reasons why Dermalog’s operations have experienced setbacks," Herrera's camp said.
Thus, the deputy minority leader asked, “Why suddenly go back to square one with another provider, especially since we are in the middle of improvements, and there are still considerable funds that the that the LTO has yet to spend to upgrade their current systems?
"There will surely be public skepticism about this, so we must ensure that such a drastic move can be fully justified," she added.