In December of last year, the Land Transportation Office (LTO) has reported that they were experiencing issues with their driver’s license (DL) laser engravers and as a result, about 92,000 DLs were in backlog at the time.
Also, during the same month, the agency vowed to resolve the crisis by February of this year.
Today, the LTO presented to the public what would be the official temporary paper DL in lieu of the plastic card. According to LTO chief, Atty. Jayart Tugade, the temporary DL will be the same as the Official Receipt (OR) should a plastic DL be printed, but with the details of the plastic card printed at the back of the paper.
“Those who will renew their driver’s license, they will be given a printout of the OR and at the back of that OR will be the printed copy of the DL should the plastic card be available,” said Tugade.
Tugade further added that a unique QR code will be included on the printout which the authorities could authenticate for legitimacy. The LTO agents, as well as the PNP-Highway Patrol Group, were already briefed with regards to the new temporary DL, says Tugade.
Plastic card a nationwide issue
LTO chief Atty. Jayart Tugade lamented that the ongoing issue on the plastic DL supply is nationwide and that the agency is doing its best to resolve it. He clarified, however, that although many of the agency’s offices had ran out of DL plastic cards, there are still those who can still print cards but the stocks are dwindling fast.
“Yung forecast po ng LTO, is completely po mauubos yung inventory on hand ng mga [LTO] offices by the last week of April,” said Tugade.
(LTO’s forecast is that our inventory on hand will be completely wiped out by last week of April.)
