No more vehicle plates, so brace for crime surge

Brace yourselves for a crime surge. Criminals of all types — from street pickpockets and drug peddlers, to bank robbers and kidnappers — will be having a field day. Getaways will be easy. They simply will use vehicles with no license plates. They won’t be detected. They would be mixing with innocent vehicles that similarly have no license plates. In fact, no vehicles will have plates.

In short, no one will be spared from crime.

All this is because the government will not be issuing vehicle license plates soon. It will not even be registering new vehicles, or renewing old ones.

A monumental lapse is causing the total breakdown in vehicle procedures of the Dept. of Transportation and Communications (DOTC). In bidding out the separate contracts for vehicle registration and license platemaking, the DOTC did not secure the required MYOA (Multi-Year Obligational Authority).

An MYOA is a document issued by the Dept. of Budget and Management (DBM) to agencies with multi-year projects. In the MYOA, the agency must commit to include in Congress’ annual appropriations its yearly payments to private contractors.

In applying with the DBM for an MYOA, agencies must attach the review and approval of the National Economic and Development Authority. The NEDA Board consists of half the Cabinet, with the President as chairman.

Without an MYOA, agencies are forbidden from proceeding with any purchase of goods and services that are to be paid over a period of more than one budget year.

No one has taken to task Sec. Joseph Emilio Aguinaldo Abaya for the DOTC’s failure to get the MYOAs for the separate contracts for vehicle registration and license platemaking. Nor is he known to have taken to task any subordinate for it.

Bidders for both projects suspect to be deliberate the DOTC’s non-securing of such basic procurement document as the MYOA. They say two officials in charge of biddings are responsible for the missing MYOAs.

President Noynoy Aquino assured in a special primetime-TV hookup last week that he has appointed persons of unquestionable integrity who perform their duties well. He said this in defending his presidential pork barrel, denounced by critics as dangerous discretionary multibillion-peso lump sums.

The MYOA is a requirement under the Government Procurement Reform Act of 2003. It was devised to uphold the sanctity of government contracts, ensure complete and prompt payment of installments, add checks and balances to agency contracting, prevent extortion by agency fund approvers and releasers, and streamline the budgeting process.

In guidelines issued 2009 by the Government Procurement Policy Board, agencies were directed to secure the MYOA from the DBM before proceeding with any purchase of goods or services that would take more than a year to complete.

In compliance with the GPPB guidelines, the Commission on Audit on the same day instructed all state auditors strictly to enforce the MYOA requirement.

All Cabinet secretaries subsequently issued similar instructions to subordinate and attached agencies.

The DBM in 2010 required agencies not only to apply for but also include the approved MYOA, specific to the project, in invitations to bid. Failure to do so would mean no funding for the procurement.

In both the biddings for the computerized vehicle registration database and the metal platemaking, the DOTC did not post any MYOA.

In fact, it did not have any such document.

Only now is Abaya negotiating with the DBM to secure the MYOAs for the two projects.

This is why, although biddings have been held and winners proclaimed, the DOTC couldn’t sign formal contracts.

The government needs to database the registrations and issue new license plates to 5.3 million motor vehicles and ten million motorcycles.

Old plates will be replaced because crime syndicates have managed to produce these on their own, and mess up the present database.

The P8.2-billion computerization is for seven years; the P3.85-billion platemaking, for three years. Both are to be implemented by the Land Transportation Office (LTO).

Both projects were bid out early this year. Due to anomalies, a rebidding will be held for the database, while lawsuits have been filed to stop the platemaking.

The LTO hardly has plates left for new vehicles, and stickers and tags for renewal of old ones. It takes months for owners to get the legal markings to use their vehicles.

If the MYOAs are not issued soon, rebidding and contract signings will be delayed longer, till the DOTC runs out of the markings.

In a news item in The STAR last Sept. 30, Abaya talked about the license plates. He admitted that the DOTC and DBM are “still resolving the issues regarding the release of funds for the project.”

In the Manila Bulletin the next day, he talked about the database project. “We are awaiting the MYOA from the DBM; then, we publish the new terms of reference,” he was quoted as saying.

Contractors in other agencies of the DOTC are inquiring about the MYOAs, for they might not be paid.

Meanwhile, anticrime groups are being advised to coordinate with the police on how to deal with a crime surge.

The National Police has imposed tougher rules on firearms registration and permits to carry outside residences. Criminals, however, do not bother to license their guns or get permits to carry.

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