DOTC urged to check alleged corruption in driver's license card

MANILA, Philippines - Militant transport group Piston (Pagkakaisa ng Samahan ng mga Tsuper and Opereytors Nationwide) urged the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and the Truth Commission that will look into alleged corrruption during the administration of former President Arroyo to investigate the highly-anomalous retention of one supplier of plastic driver’s license cards for seven years.

George San Mateo, Piston secretary general, said that the anomaly on the LTO’s failure to conduct a public bidding for the supply of the driver’s license cards may well be one of the many irregularities indicating big-time graft during the Arroyo administration. San Mateo noted that with the Government Procurement Law mandating public bidding of all government supply contracts, the LTO’s retention of the Amalgamated Motors Philippines, Inc. as the supplier for the plastic cards for driver’s license was illegal.

He was referring to the recent revelation made by LTO chief Virginia Torres that the contract of AMPI, the driver’s license contractor, with the LTO had expired way back in 2003. Torres added that at present AMPI is only operating under a ‘quantum meruit’ arrangement.

Quantum meruit is a legal term which simply means allowing a service to continue without an agreement or contract.

“It is good that this matter was made public by the LTO chief, however, it should not end there, the present government should investigate this issue including the officials of the LTO and the DOTC who were in command at the time when the contract expired,” San Mateo said.

San Mateo also believes that allowing the contractor to continue to operate even without a valid contract with the agency was to blame for the sub-standard quality of the current driver’s license plastic cards. 

San Mateo stressed that the problems with the current plastic cards should not be used as justification for their move to revert to paper-based driver’s licenses. The transport leader said that for them they still believe that plastic based cards are more durable than the paper type.

DOTC Secretary Jose “Ping” de Jesus had recently deferred the bidding for the supply of “paper-based” driver’s license cards for 2011 after receiving complaints from potential bidders that the bidding was being rigged to favor a particular bidder.