LTO: License plates available in two months

MANILA, Philippines - The Land Transportation Office hopes to resume issuing license plates in one or two months, LTO chief Virginia Torres said yesterday.

“We have the plates. It’s just their transit that is late,” she said.

Torres said the prevalence of vehicles bearing cards with their conduction number instead of license plates is temporary.

“We are addressing these cases and the cards are just temporary for number coding purposes,” she said in an interview. “The vehicles will soon be issued the proper license plates.”

The LTO chief said she and Metropolitan Manila Development Authority chairman Francis Tolentino had a talk regarding the matter before the government allowed the use of the cards.

Under the “temporary” setup, the alphanumeric combination written on a vehicle’s conduction sticker is the one that is written on a temporary plate attached to it in lieu of an actual license plate.

The last numeric digit of the conduction number is the one used as basis for determining on which day the vehicle is prohibited to run under the number-coding scheme.

Despite the prevalence of these cards on the vehicles on the roads, there is no cause for alarm, said Torres.

According to Torres, most of these vehicles with conduction number cards are newly bought.

“Because of this, they cannot be immediately issued the license plates,” she said.