Transport group holds rally as LTO starts RFID tag project

MANILA, Philippines - A group of public transport operators and drivers held a rally in front of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) headquarters along East Avenue in Quezon City yesterday as the agency started implementing its radio frequency identification device project.

Pagkakaisa ng mga Samahan ng Tsuper at Opereytor Nationwide (Piston) secretary general George San Mateo said the rally is just the first of their activities to express their opposition to the RFID project.

“We will continue our protest actions until we get a permanent injunction from the Supreme Court against the implementation of the project or the (Department of Transportation and Communications or DOTC) scraps it in deference to public sentiment,” he said.

Piston, along with congressmen from party-list groups Bayan Muna, Anakpawis and Gabriela, filed on Dec. 16, 2009 a petition asking the Supreme Court to stop the implementation of the RFID project, claiming it was awarded to Stradcom Corp. without a bidding. They also alleged that the project has other anomalies.

The DOTC and LTO seek to install RFID tags on all 5.5 million motor vehicles in the country. The RFID tags, which cost P350 each, will supposedly speed up the registration process at the LTO and rid the streets of unregistered vehicles.

San Mateo, however, said the fee is unnecessary since all registered vehicles have license plates and registration stickers. He said other groups such as the Automobile Association of the Philippines will join them in protest actions in the next few days.

LTO chief Arturo Lomibao said he expects all motor vehicles to be tagged by Oct. 31, though he has deferred the tagging of motorcycles until March “pending the determination of where to place the device.”

LTFRB welcomes RFID project

Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) chairman Alberto Suansing welcomed yesterday the full implementation of the RFID project, saying this will helped the agency get rid of unregistered public utility vehicles.

He said the LTFRB has been encountering problems with “colorum” vehicles because they are not in the database if commuters report abuses to their office. “We act on complaint but we cannot trace of the owners because they have no records,” he said.

Suansing said at least the operators of 300,000 buses, jeepneys, taxis and other public utility vehicles will benefit from the new scheme.

Efren de Luna, president of the Alliance for Concerned Transport Organizations (ACTO), called on all the transport groups nationwide to unite against colorum vehicles and maximize the use of the RFID tags.

“We think that those groups who continue to oppose RFID are those who are protecting colorum vehicles and they don’t really want to solve the roots of the colorum problem,” De Luna said.

1-UTAK party list representative Vigor Mendoza said that they see the LTO’s RFID project as a viable solution to the decades-old problem of colorum.