Discrimination at LTO?

Tokyo  – “There are barely any motoring journalists left in Manila” said a senior vice president of an American car brand. The reason most of them are “gone” this week is because they’ve all taken turns going to Japan to attend the Tokyo Motor Show. Anyone who is directly engaged in or has a passion for cars, automotive technology and motoring related developments will somehow make it to the Tokyo Motor Show because this is where and when all the latest developments, new products or models and even ideas and concept cars are presented or launched.

As a guest of Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corporation, I’m particularly interested to know about the much talked about “Final Edition” of the Mitsubishi Evolution series. Those of you who are unfamiliar may know of it or heard of the series as the Lancer EVO 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8. The hot topic among journalists here in Tokyo is that there will only be 2,000 pieces to be produced, most of them going to the US and key markets, but NADA/NONE/ZERO allocation for the Philippines. That is one question that the Filipino journalists and motoring enthusiasts are eager to get an answer to particularly among the “Fast & Furious” crowd.

Another point of interest will be the direction and new developments for urban or city vehicles. This is because of the increasing number of KAI cars or “people’s car” that are designed to be small, easy to park, takes at least four passengers, and highly fuel efficient. It is interesting to note that KAI cars are actually what got Japan off its feet in the late 1950s. The engines were the equivalent of medium displacement one or two cylinder motorcycles below 1000cc and since the Japanese buyers were much smaller then than today, the actual products were better versions than our modern-day tricycles.

In fact, given the creativity and productivity of Pinoys like my young friend Atoy Llave of Atoy Bodykits fame who helped create the floating waterproof tricycle called The Salamander, and a bunch of other designers and enthusiasts, perhaps we should start our dreams of building a “Filipino car” by upgrading the lowly tricycle into the Pinoy Kai. God-willing I myself hope to display a “KAI” next year at the Manila International Auto Show. The KAI is a Mazda 360 that was originally made sometime in 1960 but barely survived the ravage of time, typhoons, lack of parts and roadside repairs. By April we hope to present an Electric KAI in partnership with Maribago BlueWater Resort of Mactan that provided us the electric platform.

The KAI cars, electric cars, hybrids and flexi-fuel vehicles were all “futuristic” for Filipinos who saw these concepts in Tokyo Motor Shows of the past. But they now exist in the Philippines. This is the importance of trade shows in whatever field; not as field trips but to be in a field of dreams, to see the future so we can better understand and prepare for the future.

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On my way to see the future of motoring, I bumped into Ms. Menie Mortel, the lady in-charge for operations at the Land Transportation Office. We quickly got into a discussion on broken promises regarding the proposed memorandum or circular that would enable owners of undocumented Classic or Vintage cars to register them and allow use even for limited number of days in a week or a month. I wrote about the unfulfilled promise where Asec. Tan was suppose to be supportive of the memorandum and was suppose to come true by March early this year but never happened.

According to Ms. Mortel who was on her way to attend another transport related event in Bangkok, Thailand, her assistant will be presenting the draft to Asec.Tan and all his regional directors at their conference today if it was not already presented yesterday. Mortel however, advised me to manage my expectations since it was the least or lowest priority for Asec. Tan and the regional directors. I found that statement disappointing if not annoying. After more than a decade of asking LTO officials to make the process part of their standard operating procedures, LTO officials persist in making the process a “case to case” basis and recently even stopped the process that actually records undocumented vehicles. It would be the equivalent of not wanting to register loose firearms. WHY? Is there a counter lobby against “old cars”?

It is tragic that we have thousands of dilapidated, polluting jeepneys all made in backyard talyers that are not subjected to annual inspection or emission testing by the LTO as required by law. We have hundreds of thousands of tricycles that would not pass minimum safety or performance standards if rules were applied by the LTO. We have thousands of repurposed trucks and buses many regularly getting into serious accidents, but they all manage to get registered year after year because they are not driven to LTO accredited testing centers. The only time the LTO/LTFRB does a visual/eye check is after a bus jumps off the skyway or kills people.

But when it comes to undocumented classic and vintage cars that restorers spend hundreds of thousands all the way to millions of pesos to make them “as good as new,” the LTO simply treats them like junk, sight unseen!

We need to save the few remaining classics and vintage vehicles that were made from 1972 or older because many of these old eight cylinder vehicles were junked, trashed, or left abandoned especially after the fuel crisis in the late 70s. We have very few remaining icons of our car culture and motoring history left and if the government persists on obstructing the registration even the limited use of these, there will be no reason or motivation to preserve them and pass them on as family heirlooms and part of our past culture. Asec. Tan please help stop this discrimination.

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