Gordon hits LTO over motorcycle plates

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Richard Gordon criticized yesterday the Land Transportation Office (LTO) for its failure to implement Republic Act 11235 or the Motorcycle Crime Prevention Act, which was enacted into law almost three years ago.

“The first batch of license plates for motorcycles was distributed on Aug. 27, 2020. The LTO still needs to produce 18 million motorcycle plates by June 2022,” he said.

Gordon, who authored the law, said the LTO failed to protect motorcycle riders and committed injustice by dilly-dallying in implementing the provisions of RA 11235.

He reprimanded the agency for what he called “unconscionable and inordinate delays” in releasing motorcycle plates as well as the establishment of a joint LTO-Philippine National Police Operations and Control Center.

“The implementation of the law has been delayed so the (Senate) Blue Ribbon committee was forced to call hearings to determine what caused the delays,” Gordon said.

“Non-implementation of the law can have dire consequences for our people. Many suffered injuries or died because of this dereliction of duty,” he added.

Gordon, chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, has initiated an investigation into the non-implementation of the Motorcycle Crime Prevention Law.

The probe revealed that five motorcycle dealers falsified documents, shortchanging the government of billions of pesos worth of taxes for misdeclaration of sales.