PETCs lambast LTO's move to monopolize emission tests

MANILA, Philippines - An association of private emission testing centers lambasted a move of the Land Transportation Office to take over the smoke emission testing of all private vehicles in the country from PETCs.

Aside from throwing 600 PETCs out of business and rendering as much as 5,000 of their employees jobless, Herminio Buerano Jr., president of the Coalition for Clean Air (CCA), said that LTO does not have the capability to conduct smoke emission testing on the more than 5.5 million vehicles in the country.

In the resulting chaos that could result when all vehicles go to the few LTO Motor Vehicle Inspection Service (MVIS) offices throughout the country, Buerano said that a resulting LTO monopoly on smoke emission tests could only result to corruption and the illegal so-called “non-appearance” cases to once again run rampant.

“Why do they have to take over smoke emission testing when private emission testing centers have been doing it? We really doubt if they can handle the smoke emission testing of just the two million vehicles in Metro Manila alone since they only have two MVIS centers now that only has six lanes capable of holding 600 tests a day,” Buerano said.

Buerano said that currently, PETCs accommodate as much as 9,000 vehicles a day just for Metro Manila alone.

It was learned that the LTO has already issued Administrative Order No. 18, which orders all private motor vehicles to have their smoke emission tests at the LTO MVIS centers.

Before Administrative Order 18, the LTO’s MVIS undertakes the smoke emission testing of public utility vehicles while PETCs take care of smoke testing of private vehicles.

LTO records for 2008 show that there are 5,906,165 registered motor vehciles in the country, of which 4,919,999 are privately owned, 73, 936 are owned by the government, 900,362 are vehicles for hire, and 5,048 are for diplomats.          – Rainier Allan Ronda