It’s been 4 years since former president and motorcycle enthusiast, Rodrigo Duterte, signed into law Republic Act 11235 or the Motorcycle Crime Prevention Act. Dubbed by motorcycle riders as “Doble Plaka Law”, the statute puts heavy penalties on erring motorcycle riders and owners, including prison time, as well as the requirement of a larger front and rear number plates for motorcycles.
So far, the Land Transportation Office (LTO) was not able to solve the plate backlog issue due to supplier, budget and political reasons.
In August of last year, Senator Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito, filed a bill that seeks to amend certain provisions of RA 11235, including the use of an RFID as a front motorcycle “plate” as opposed to the original readable plate from a distance of 15 meters.
Today, a senate public hearing was held to discuss the proposed amendments. Sen. Ejercito’s Senate Bill (SB) 159 wants to utilize Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) instead of using a visually-readable front plate.
Under Section 3, Section 5 of RA 11235 is amended as follows: “Bigger and readable color-coded number plate and installation of RFID sticker – the LTO shall issue a readable number plate and RFID sticker for every motorcycle. The LTO shall, in the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of this Act, determine the font style and size of the bigger, readable, and color-coded number plate AND A SMALL SCANNER-READABLE RFID STICKER: Provided, That the contents of the number plate shall be readable from the [front, the- back, and the side] BACK of the motorcycle from a distance of at least fifteen (15) meters from the motorcycle; AND THE DATA CONTAINED IN THE RFID STICKER INSTALLED IN THE FRONT OF THE MOTORCYCLE SHALL BE READABLE BY RFID SCANNERS.”
Additionally, SB 159 seeks to make the heavy penalties of RA 11235 unique to motorcycle riders more “humane”.
Sections 4 to 6 of the said bill will lower the penalties stipulated in RA 11235 to just PHP 5,000, PHP 10,000, and Arresto Menor or 1 to 30 days imprisonment, from PHP 20,000 to PHP 100,000, and jail time of up to a couple of years.
