LTO seeks PHP 6.8B funding to clear license plate backlog

The Land Transportation Office's (LTO) woes with license plates are far from over. Despite having two plate-making machines at its disposal, the agency still has to address the issue of backlogged license plates.

What's worse is that the LTO needs PHP 6.8 billion in additional funding in order to actually address the current production backlog of license plates for both four-wheeled and two-wheeled vehicles. This was confirmed by newly-appointed LTO Officer-in-Charge (OIC) Romeo Vera Cruz during a Laging Handa Briefing last Wednesday.

According to the OIC, the agency has all the capabilities to produce plates for both motorcycles and four-wheeled vehicles. However, they still need to acquire additional funding so that the LTO can buy spare parts and get all of their engravers up and running.

“Wala pong problema sa pag-produce ng plaka because we have modern plate-making plant. Kapag mayroon pong plate eh gagawin po natin iyan. Our engravers are five years old na, may mga problema na po sa mga spare parts,” said Vera Cruz.

[There is no problem with producing plates because we have a modern plate-making plant. Once we have the plates, then we’ll work on them. Our engravers are five-years-old already. We have a problem with spare parts]

To date, Vera Cruz said that the plant is running with two production shifts and is capable of up to three shifts. They claim that the automated license plate machine for four-wheeled vehicles can make 700 plates per hour or 5,600 plates in an 8-hour shift. Meanwhile, the machine meant for producing motorcycle license plates can crank out 450 plates per hour or 3,600 plates in 8 hours.

But with the LTO's engravers in need of replacement, the agency hopes that Congress will be able to grant them the near PHP 7 billion in additional funds in order to address the backlog issue.