Longer wait seen for new car plates – LTO

MANILA, Philippines – The notice of disallowance from the Commission on Audit (COA) and the temporary restraining order from Supreme Court on the release and distribution of car plates would have to be resolved by the incoming Duterte administration, according to Land Transportation Office (LTO) Director Roberto Cabrera.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, Cabrera said the COA’s notice of disallowance of the LTO’s car plate deal with the Filipino-Dutch consortium J. Knieriem B.V. Goes and Power Plates Development Concept Inc. is still in effect and has “stalled everything for almost two years.”

The COA ruled that the contract of LTO with JKG-PPI, which won the P3.8-billion five-year contract to supply license plates in 2013, was not in accordance with the procedures prescribed under the Government Procurement Reform Act.

Cabrera said everyone should have moved on from the car plates mess if only COA resolved the disallowance.

The COA is taking too long to make a decision and the last pleading the LTO filed against the notice of disallowance was on Jan. 16, 2016, he added.

If the COA had acted on their pleadings before the elections, the release of the car plates would have been done in April or March this year, he added.

Cabrera hopes that the COA would finally resolve the matter in favor of government and lift the notice of disallowance.

The COA should have realized that the issuance of the car plates is of national interest or “probably of national emergency already,” he added.

Cabrera said the SC’s TRO is “a step backwards” for the LTO as they have already delivered and distributed 93 percent of the plates turned over by the Bureau of Customs   last April.

They cannot do anything with the SC’s order but to abide by it, he added.

Cabrera said they would exhaust all legal remedies so the LTO can file its comment against the TRO   before it is finalized or lifted.

He has yet to obtain a copy of the SC’s decision as of 3 p.m. yesterday, he added.

Cabrera said the LTO will continue processing and encoding the license plates in their system as they were only barred by the SC from releasing the plates.

“But of course, I can still continue with the encoding,” he said, and that if the order comes, 

“I will release memorandum to all regional offices to stop the release or distribution until further notice.” 

Cabrera will meet incoming LTO director Edgar Galvante to further discuss the car plate deal and possible legal remedies to resolve the problem in order to address the car plate backlog at the LTO.

The best way to resolve the problem is to ask the COA to resolve the issue, he added.