EDITORIAL - Promoting roadworthiness

With so many road accidents involving poorly maintained motor vehicles with faulty brakes, particularly buses and trucks, there is a need to promote roadworthiness and responsible vehicle ownership. However, in a developing country where millions of households can afford only second-hand cars and motorcycles, the roadworthiness campaign must be rational.

Under the testing conducted by Private Motor Vehicle Inspection Centers or PMVIC, a motor vehicle must pass 72 points including smoke emission before qualifying for registration. The requirement is understandable especially for vehicles that are used for long-haul trips such as passenger and tour buses as well as truck haulers. Surely the owners have enough money for the proper maintenance of such vehicles.

But there are multitudes of low-income owners of motorcycles, Multicabs, jeepneys and other utility vehicles used as public conveyances, vans and souped-up vehicles used for transporting fish and livestock. These vehicles may undergo regular basic tune-ups but are typically taken for repairs only when the need arises. With the mandatory PMVIC testing, such vehicles may have to undergo costly but unnecessary repairs or replacements to meet the 72 standards for roadworthiness.

Those 72 standards are fine for advanced economies where Audis and Mercedes Benz sedans are used as taxis. But this is the Philippines, where people still use the kuliglig for transporting people and goods, and where the typical public utility vehicle is rarely brand new.

Still, with the Delta variant raging across the country, the Land Transportation Office recently revived the mandatory PMVIC testing within so-called geographic areas of responsibility or GAORs. Amid a public outcry, the testing had been made optional several months ago, in lieu of the emission test. This time, the tests were mandated in GAORs where there is a PMVIC.

The PMVICs, however, are still too few even in GAORs, and motorists will have to wait in line in the middle of a raging pandemic to get their vehicles tested and retested. And even if the cost of a PMVIC test has been brought down, with no more retesting fee, motoring groups have cited the high cost of often unnecessary vehicle repairs just to pass all 72 inspection points for registration.

As senators lambasted the revival of the mandatory PMVIC testing, the government has relented and the order has been suspended pending a review of the policy. The push for roadworthiness must be balanced with the realities of vehicle ownership in this country.