LTO: Shady individuals asking PHP 200 for unclaimed plates

Land Transportation Office chief, Atty. Vigor Mendoza II, earlier announced that his office received information that some unscrupulous individuals were allegedly asking drivers PHP 200.00 in exchange for not needing to wait or fall in line when getting their license plates.

To verify this allegation, Asec. Mendoza says that the agency will be soon fielding “mystery persons” who would be tasked to verify information that some individuals are supposedly using the distribution process for money.

“And we will put mystery persons who will get their plates so we can verify, validate and monitor if there is in fact truth to these money-making allegations,” said Mendoza.

Earlier, the LTO announced that they are eyeing malls as distribution centers for unclaimed license plates. The malls would help in the distribution system so that the agency’s district offices will not be overwhelmed.

“We are now looking at the distribution system, we’ve already talked with [car/motorcycle] dealers and malls to make them as distribution points [of license plates], not necessarily our own District Offices because they might get overwhelmed,” said Mendoza.

Mendoza also said that he wants the majority of the transactions in the LTO to be done online in order to provide a more efficient and effective service to the public.

“We will have to shift some of our transactions from walk-in to online. We already have the app and it's running, we're just not using it enough. So, within this year, I hope that we can shift the majority of our transactions to online appointments and lessen walk-ins."