The Land Transportation Office (LTO) is eyeing the procurement of more breath analyzers amid cases of the fatal accidents involving drunk drivers across the country.
LTO chief, Assistant Secretary Vigor D. Mendoza II said the procurement and deployment of the breath analyzers on the ground will lead to the strict enforcement of the Anti-Drunk and Drugged Driving Act of 2013, which he said, has not been fully implemented.
“We have an existing Philippine Road Safety Action Plan and part of it is the enforcement of the Anti-Drunk and Drugged Driving Act of 2013. And to ensure effective enforcement, we have to download as many breath analyzers that could be used by traffic and law enforcers on the ground,” said Mendoza.
Aside from procuring breath analyzers, transport officials have also started meeting for the implementation of the mandatory installation of speed limiters to public utility vehicles (PUVs) as stipulated in the the Road Speed Limiter Act of 2016.
The procurement of more breath analyzers came after the two first batches of procurements in 2015 and 2017 are not mostly unusable—both were earlier suspected to be overpriced and substandard.
Mendoza already ordered a review on the procured breath analyzers and based on the initial assessment, only 288 of the 756 units could be fixed and recalibrated.
“Our focus right now is to really fix the purchased breath analyzers because what is important is to re-distribute them to our personnel on the ground for the strict implementation of the Anti-Drunk and Drugged Driving Act of 2013,” said Assec Mendoza.
Part of the assessment, however, according to Assec Mendoza is the conduct of an analysis if it would be more practical to buy new breath analyzers than have them fixed and recalibrated.
But what Assec Mendoza assured is that if the LTO would purchase new breath analyzers, the procurement process would be transparent.