Government vehicles not exempted from smoke-belching drive

Government vehicles are not exempted from the government’s anti-smoke belching campaign, Transportation Secretary Pantaleon Alvarez said yesterday.

The government is set to fully implement a program to rid the roads of smoke-belching vehicles on July 1 by requiring all vehicles to be submitted for testing.

Alvarez said all vehicles should be tested for smoke emission if the goals of the law against air pollution, known as the Clean Air Act (Republic Act 8749), are to be achieved.

Passed last year, the landmark law is in line with the international campaign against global warming.

"No one is exempted here. If we are to clean our air of pollutants, all vehicles must pass the emission test," Alvarez said. "We have to start now the fight against ozone-depleting gas emissions, whether they come from industrial plants or from motor vehicles."

Under the program, the Land Transportation Office (LTO) will not accept for registration vehicles found violating the legal limit for smoke emission.

If a vehicle fails the smoke emission test would be required to have their engines "cleaned" and tested again. Only if the vehicle passes the smoke emission test can it be registered with the LTO.

Vehicles found on the roads to be belching smoke would be pulled over and their drivers fined.

There are 3.2 million motor vehicles nationwide, according to the LTO. Over half of the vehicles are in Metro Manila. To ensure that all vehicles can be tested, the LTO and the Department of Transportation and Communications are authorizing privately run testing centers to conduct tests.

However, some centers complained of alleged irregularities in the accreditation, which prompted Alvarez to order an investigation.

The allegations came shortly after the accredition requirements were revised on April 24 to encourage more applicants, which did jump from 15 to 180.