LTO starts building new IT system

MANILA, Philippines - With 17 months to go before its build-operate-own (BOO) contract with its information technology and database provider lapses, the Land Transportation Office (LTO) has started efforts to design a new IT system by 2013.

In a statement released yesterday, LTO chief Virginia Torres said she has started initial discussions with the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) and Public-Private Partnership Center (PPPC) executive director Philamer Torio to design the framework for the new system under the Aquino administration’s Public-Private Partnership scheme.

“The activities and decisions of the LTO in the next 17 months would translate to the quality of its core services for the succeeding decade,” Torres said in a recent presentation to Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) Secretary Mar Roxas.

She added that experiences of LTO in the past decade would dictate that the new PPP project should be protected “in every single step of its implementation.”

The LTO will work with NEDA and PPPC during the transition, including the drafting of the terms of reference, procurement and bidding process for the new contract and other related transition and turn-over activities.

Torres and Stradcom Corp. had a bitter squabble earlier this year, with the latter filing an administrative case against the LTO chief. Stradcom accused her of helping a group of businessmen stage a failed takeover of their central operations center at the LTO compound in Quezon City last December, which disrupted their operations for some seven hours.

The Department of Justice, which formed a fact-finding committee to probe the complaint of Stradcom, later recommended to Malacañang the filing of administrative charges against Torres, said to be a shooting buddy of President Aquino, which has been ignored by Malacanang.

Under the terms of the BOO scheme, Stradcom can take the IT infrastructure, including facilities and application systems, and leave the LTO with just the database.

“But without the IT facilities and application system to access and utilize it, the database would be rendered useless,” Torres explained.

“With only a short period to prepare, the challenge is to immediately come up with a solution to salvage the LTO processes from returning to manual during the transition period,” Torres said.