Starting next month, the Land Transportation Office (LTO) will start impounding motor vehicles with expired licenses in what is seen as the hard way of compelling delinquent owners to fulfill their obligation following what appeared to be repeated failures to convince them in the nicest ways.

In November 2023, LTO chief, Assistant Secretary Vigor D. Mendoza disclosed that more than 60 percent of motor vehicles in the country have expired licenses and a significant number of them were unregistered for multiple years.

This translates to over 24 million motor vehicles with expired licenses out of the more than 38 million motor vehicles in the country—the number is big and so does the money that was supposed to be collected by the national government from registration renewals.

Mendoza initiated measures to convince delinquent motor vehicles to renew the registration of their motor vehicles, including aggressive traditional campaigns of using tarpaulins in LTO offices and other conspicuous places, and using various social media platforms.

The LTO even went to the extent of designating special fast lanes for renewal of motor vehicle registration in its various offices—yet, to no avail.

And then no more Mr. Nice Guy.

By August this year, Mendoza said LTO enforcers will be mandated to impound motor vehicles with expired registration, particularly those with multiple years of being unregistered.

This is on top of the P10,000 automatic fine for having expired registration.

The impounding of unregistered motor vehicles also covered those with visible road worthiness issues, according to Mendoza.

“The unregistered motor vehicles will be impounded until such time that they pass the roadworthiness inspection. We have to do this in the interest of a greater number of road users,” said Mendoza.

An instruction was already made to all regional directors to identify and prepare the impounding areas in their respective areas of responsibility in anticipation of multiple apprehensions when the crackdown begins.

More apprehensions

For the month of June this year, a total of 20,307 unregistered motor vehicles were apprehended across the country.

Mendoza said almost all of those apprehended were motorcycles with 12,808 and tricycles with 3,992.

“The over 20,000 apprehensions for the month of June is just a small fraction of the total number of motor vehicles that we want to have their registration renewed. We will continue these aggressive operations,” said Mendoza.

Based on the LTO data, Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) has the most number of apprehensions again with 10,516; followed by Mimaropa (Occidental and Oriental Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan) with 2,925; and, Cagayan Valley Region with 2,591.

The same data disclosed that a total of 850 private sedans were also apprehended and 1,852 vans, 29 of them are public utility vehicles.

On the other hand, 47 passenger jeepneys were also apprehended along with 10 buses and 544 trucks.

LTO officials have been urging motor vehicle owners to comply with their obligation to register their vehicles to avoid penalties as high as P10,000.

Mendoza said that the renewal of registration is one of the best ways to ensure the road worthiness of motor vehicles amid the LTO’s aggressive road safety campaign, “Stop Road Crash”.