CEBU CITY – Ensuring the immediate release of license plates to vehicle owners was discussed when the chief of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) met with various stakeholders in Cebu.
LAND Transportation Office chief Atty. Vigor Mendoza II (left) meets stakeholders in a consultative meeting in Cebu on Tuesday, March 6. (Contributed photo)
During the consultative meeting on Tuesday, March 6, Assistant Secretary Atty. Vigor Mendoza II discussed the LTO’s continued efforts to improve its services and provide the best support they could offer.
Mendoza said the plan is to impose a timeline for dealers to release motor vehicles and motorcycle plates to owners once these are already turned over to them.
"That's precisely why I want to talk to the dealers. I spoke to the dealers in Manila that's why I'm also here to give these dealers a timeline within which to distribute the plates,” Mendoza said.
A 72-hour or a three-working day deadline for every dealership to release the plates to their owners must be imposed, said Mendoza.
"The plates are available. But either they will help us or they will not help us. If they will not help us, I want a direct answer. But I want those plates distributed within 72 hours or three working days from the time it's given to them (dealers),” Mendoza said.
The timeline was imposed to support the LTO-Central Visayas campaign of releasing unclaimed license plates to owners.
LTO-7 chief Glen Galario disclosed that for the past six months, over 100,000 license plates have been released from their storage facility in Talisay City, Cebu.
"We welcome this move from our LTO chief as we continue to push for the speedy release of these unclaimed license plates," said Galario.
Aside from the deadline given to dealers, LTO offices are also mandated to release available license plates by the same deadline.
Mendoza also introduced the voluntary passport-style of releasing unclaimed plates in the future.
"We want it to be easy for them and so we would like to adopt the passport-style wherein if they agree we can just send the plates to them in their given addresses. It's like when they order online, they will have to shoulder the cost of the delivery. So they pay directly to the courier,” Mendoza said.
Mendoza is optimistic that issues with driver's license cards will slowly be addressed within this month. "We are targeting this month of March as the turnaround point from zero licenses. We are targeting that our problem in court will be fixed,” said Mendoza.
The Quezon City Regional Trial Court issued a preliminary injunction against the government's procurement of plastic license cards which resulted in a temporary halt last October.
Mendoza revealed that there they have a backlog of 3.3 million undelivered driver's license cards nationwide.