Senate to ratify bill for bigger license plates

MANILA, Philippines — The Senate is set to ratify a bill that would require motorcycles and scooters to have two large license plates for easy identification, Senate Majority Floor Leader Sen Juan Miguel Zubiri said yesterday.

”The bicameral conference committee had a meeting Wednesday night. Hopefully we will ratify it next week. This is good, the license plates would be bigger,” he said.

Senate Bill 1397 or the Motorcycle Crime Prevention Act of 2017, authored by Sen. Richard Gordon and Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III, was approved with 21 affirmative votes, zero negative vote and no abstention. 

The measure mandates the Land Transportation Office (LTO) to issue bigger and reflectorized license plates to every motorcycle and scooter in the country to take a “bite out of crime committed with the use of motorcycles or scooters.” 

The plate numbers should be big enough to be readable from a distance of 12 to 15 meters.

The LTO is also mandated to devise a color scheme for every region to easily identify where the motorcycle was registered, together with an alphanumeric system for easier identification and recollection by the general public.

“Motorcycles have become crime machines. With their small plate numbers, criminals perpetrating crimes while on board motorcycles easily flee from the scene of the crime and usually there are no witnesses who can read or identify plate numbers so that the authorities can go after the criminals,” Gordon said.