Antipolo City 2nd district Rep. Romeo Acop (Screenshot from Zoom meeting)





A total of 172 out of the Land Transportation Office's (LTO) 350 branches no longer have plastic cards for driver’s licenses, House of Representatives members learned. The status of the plastic cards was bared by LTO Chief Jose Arturo Tugade Thursday, May 11 during an inquiry of the House Committee on Transportation chaired by Antipolo City 2nd district Rep. Romeo Acop. “As of May 2, 2023, the total number of inventory that we have on hand is 83,490 plastic cards left,” Tugade said, adding that the backlog for the plastic licenses is 234,149. The difference is 150,659 plastic cards. Tugade said the opening and submission of bids for the procurement of plastic driver’s licenses have been scheduled on May 24. The target completion of the procurement process including the delivery is in July 2023. He said the first delivery is scheduled 60 days following the issuance of the notice to proceed. Once the plastic cards become available, LTO offices will be opened on Saturdays and Sundays to address the backlog, Tugade said. During the hearing, the LTO made a rundown of the contingency measures it carried out to mitigate the plastic card shortage. "First, we started to reallocate the available supply of the driver's license cards. Nag-forecasting po kami and inadjust po namin yung mga on-hand inventory nung mga iba’t-ibang offices po namin (We did forecasting and adjustments on the on-hand inventory of our different offices)," Tugade said. "The second contingency measure na ginawa po ng LTO (that LTO did) is we authorized the use of the temporary license. Ito po yung the (This was the) recognition of the OR (official receipt) printed on paper as the temporary driver's license," he said. "Another policy that we issued in order to address the shortage of plastic cards, we at LTO  extended the validity of driver's license expiring on April 24, 2023 onwards until October 24, 2023," he further noted. Bagong Henerasyon (BH) Party-list Rep. Bernadette Herrera thanked the LTO during her interpellation at the hearing. "Thank you at inayos na agad ng DOTr at LTO itong problemang ito bago pa rin makarating sa committee (Thank you to the Department of Transportation and the LTO for fixing the situation before it reached the committee). I hope moving forward we won't have an episode like his again," she said.