LTO Asec. Mendoza: Old IT system preference over LTMS not true

Land Transportation Office (LTO) chief, Assistant Secretary, Atty. Vigor Mendoza II has issued a response following allegations from Dermalog – the agency’s IT provider for LTMS – that he prefers the old IT system from Stradcom.

“This is in response to the allegation raised by the representatives of the German company Dermalog in a press conference which basically states that I prefer the old IT system over the new system, the Land Transportation Management System (LTMS). This is not true,” said Mendoza.

The LTO chief says that the LTMS has its own limitations and that for its price tag of more than PHP 3 billion in taxpayers’ money, the expectation is very high and it simply did not deliver.

"Everything was doing well but along the way, we discovered some limitations under the LTMS that include discrepancies in the computations of some fees such as the Motor Vehicle Users Charge or MVUC. All our frontliners down to the district offices could attest to this and even LTO. These limitations are the reason why until now, the LTO could not go fully digital and had to revert to the old system because there are transactions that could not be handled by the LTMS. The LTMS is a more than PHP 3 billion digitalization contract signed in 2018 and at that price tag, the services offered must meet the high expectations of the Filipino people because that is their hard-earned money," added Mendoza.

The LTMS, which stands for Land Transportation Management System, is basically a one-stop shop for all LTO transactions from licensing to vehicle registration, driver educational courses, account management, and many more.

In October 2023, the LTO proposed a full takeover of the LTMS, saying that its in-house IT specialists are more than capable of maintaining the program, which in turn, could save the government millions every year as opposed to being run by a contractor. Mendoza also added during that time, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) found 14 deficiencies in the LTMS system and 166 that needed enhancements to further improve the system.

A petition was filed in the Supreme Court (SC) in December 2023 asking to scrap the joint venture agreement between the LTO and Dermalog due to the latter’s alleged contract fulfillment failures. The petitioners have also asked the SC to hold Dermalog liable for PHP 300 billion in damages to the government.