Thousands of motorcycle number plates remain unclaimed at the Land Transportation Office (LTO) Region 11 property section. The office is packed with the plates of those who registered between January 1 to May 24, 2018; and from July 23 to September 12, 2018. The LTO Region 11 (Davao Region) has called upon the owners whose motorcycles are registered at their office.
Region 11 is comprised of five provinces: Davao de Oro, Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, Davao Oriental, and Davao Occidental. If your motorcycle is registered here, your plate is probably already available.
To claim your motorcycle’s number plate, the LTO Region 11 advises bringing a photocopy of your motorcycle’s Official Receipt and Certificate of Registration (OR/ CR). Those who will claim the number plate on behalf of another person must present an authorization letter with a photocopy of the registered owner’s valid ID, in addition to the OR/ CR.
Once you receive the plate, it will also come with an LTO RFID sticker which must be attached on the FRONT of the motorcycle. Read this article on how to attach it.
2018 backlog
According to a statement released by the Department of Transportation (DOTr) back in August, there were quite a number of factors that affected the delay of the delivery of number plates, particularly, for motorcycles.
Back in 2014, a contract was signed between the then Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC, now DOTr) and PPI-JKG Philippines, Inc. (PPI-JKG) to supply the LTO’s license plate requirements up to 2017. The contract called for the delivery of 5.2 million pairs of Motor Vehicle (MV) plates and 9.9 million pieces of motorcycle plates.
About a year later in 2015, LTO’s payment to the PPI-JKG was disallowed by the COA, after complaints were filed over some irregularities with the transaction. Due to the COA disallowance, the payment to the supplier had to be suspended, which led to a halt of the production and delivery of the license plates. Moreover, given the disallowance, the Supreme Court (SC) issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the distribution of the produced plates following scrutiny by several lawmakers.
About three years later in 2018, the Notice of Disallowance was lifted and a new contract was awarded through public bidding to the Trojan Computer Forms Manufacturing Corp and JH Tonnjes E.A.S.T GmbH Joint Venture in time for the rehabilitation of the LTO Plate Making Plant.
In 2018, the LTO plate-making facility in Quezon City started to stamp the backlogged number plates that were previously being outsourced by the agency.
It was also during that year the DOTr-LTO started the release of motor vehicle plates registered in July 2016.
Though the DOTr’s statement did not talk about “Doble Plaka”, it is worth noting that its passage in March 2019 meant that the LTO had to stop stamping motorcycle number plates again as they were not compliant with the new format. This further delayed the number plates delivery, until a new and larger number plate design was finalized in accordance with the law’s IRR.
Lastly, the DOTr emphasized that the LTO, like any government agency, remits all of its revenues to the national treasury, hence, it cannot fund itself without budget approval from congress.
In 2019 for example, the LTO requested PhP1,869,274,000.00 budget allocation, however, they were only granted PhP 696,747,000.00 – less than half of what was being requested. Last year, the agency requested PhP 3.574-billion but was only granted PhP 925-million (figures are rounded off) – again, less than half of what was being requested.
In other words, these budget cuts prevent the LTO from procuring the necessary equipment, manpower and other resources to produce the backlogged motorcycle number plates in a timely manner.
