Too Much on LTO’s Plate?

Here’s the deal: The National Anti-Kidnapping Task Force (NAKTF) notwithstanding, all motor vehicles on the road should have license plates. Trucks, buses, motorcycles, cars — everything — whether privately- or government-owned, should have license plates if these are to operate on public roads. This has been — or more precisely, should be — the case since the registration of vehicles was required by law as early as 1912, when an Automobile Section at the Department of Public Works was established, effectively becoming the country’s first government agency tasked to handle motorized vehicle matters. So the NAKTF imposition on March 10, 2004 of the "No Plate, No Travel" policy — purportedly part of the agency’s anti-kidnapping efforts — shouldn’t have caused any stir among motorists.

Except that it did.

Because presently, there are vehicles operating on public roads sans license plates. The reasons are varied, from willful causes like delinquent registration to a car owner’s vanity or a criminal’s downright sinister motives, if not utter contempt for road laws by circumventing the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority’s (MMDA) vehicular traffic reduction scheme. Or maybe even just plain old braggadocio from these vehicle owners, whom NAKTF chief Angelo Reyes tagged as "Mga siga sa daan."

But a good percentage have a more innocuous reason, not having any choice on the matter altogether. Being new car owners, their vehicles simply haven’t been issued license plates yet. Something which everybody concerned — from the vehicle owners themselves, to the car dealers and manufacturers, to NAKTF, the Land Transportation Office (LTO) and other government agencies — feel should not be the case. So who’s to blame for these plate-less new vehicles?

Certainly not the car owners, who themselves instinctively point their fingers to the car dealers to whom they bought their cars from. Which initially seems a logical conclusion. But placing the blame on the auto industry may be totally inaccurate — and highly unfair — as representatives from the country’s auto manufacturers are one in saying. They say the responsibility rests squarely on the LTO’s shoulders, although no car manufacturer wants to be named for fear of governmental "sanctions".

Another exec from a top auto manufacturer who requested anonymity — again wary of "sanctions" — explained to The Star the process of new vehicle registration and license plate issuance, and why blaming the manufacturers for the mess is barking up the wrong tree.

Whenever a new vehicle rolls off the assembly line, the manufacturer settles this vehicle’s duties to the Bureau of Customs (BOC). With BOC certifcate of tax payment in hand, the manufacturer then files a Stock Report to the LTO, after which a Certificate of Stock Reported (CSR) is issued by the LTO and the papers are sent back to the manufacturer. This process usually takes 15 days for the LTO to complete, and the manufacturer needs another three days before it can proceed to the next step.

After which, the manufacturer can now turn over the vehicle to the dealership, where the vehicle will be bought by the customer. Effectively, this is the point where the process of registering and securing a license plate for the vehicle begins, although strictly speaking, it begins when the manufacturer files for the BOC certification. Anyway, the dealer will submit all the vehicle’s documents like the CSR and sales invoice in order to get a PNP Clearance. Once the PNP Clearance is granted, the dealer will then submit all these documents to the LTO Central Office for authentication, all the while securing insurance and Motor Vehicle Inspection System (MVIS) certificates. When all the pertinent papers are signed and done, these all go back to the dealer.

At this point, the dealer submits these documents to an LTO District Office in order to get the vehicle’s Certificate of Registration, Official Receipt and license plates. Barring any unforeseen problem, the process usually takes about 16 working days from the point a vehicle is turned over to the dealership to the time it is registered. Supposedly, the LTO needs only three days from the time the dealer first submits documents for registration.

All new vehicles are also issued a Conduction Sticker, the supposed purpose of which is to serve as the vehicle’s initial documentation. Conduction Stickers are placed by the manufacturers themselves, and technically, should be valid only for transport purposes from the manufacturing plant to the dealership. The sticker is also valid for seven calendar days only, and supposedly the count starts once a sales invoice for the vehicle is issued. But as mentioned above, the registration process needs, on average, 16 working days, so the sticker is expired by the time everything is done.

Some looser interpretation allows for the seven-day effectivity of the sticker to begin after the vehicle is sold to the customer. A Conduction Permit can be issued after the sticker’s expiration.

Trouble is, once a vehicle hits a dealership showroom’s floors, it’s already up for sale. A customer who walks in and buys the vehicle, would therefore want to walk out with the vehicle as soon as possible. If it needs 16 days to have all the registration documents and license plates issued, the result then are plate-less new vehicles on the road, with only sales invoices or Conduction Stickers to show for these — which are not the intended purpose of the sticker to begin with. (In other cases, vehicles already have registration papers but not license plates.)

"But we can’t blame the customers for doing so. They’ve spent and paid for the vehicle, and it’s understandable they want to use it immediately," says our source. "And it’s not the dealer’s fault also if registration takes a long time."

For its part, the LTO, says our source, cites the delayed filing of documents by the dealers as one of the causes of delay in plate issuance. Our source admits that some dealers, from whichever manufacturer, do have a practice of waiting for a reasonable number of vehicle units at hand before it proceeds to the LTO for documentation.

"For example, if a dealer gets 10 units today, the dealer may wait another day until it gets 10 more before filing papers to the LTO," the car exec said. Since thousands of vehicles are sold monthly in the country, the LTO then has to deal with a large volume of transactions, and so a dealer’s delayed filing can thus result in a more protracted process.

That, however, may only underscore the LTO’s inadequacy in handling the matter. "We would like to assist the government in whatever way possible to speed up the process," says our source. "But whatever the volume of transaction, shouldn’t it be that the LTO must be capable of handling it? Because at the end of the day, isn’t it the LTO’s duty to make sure this job is done?"

According to our source, the LTO (as well as Reyes, during a radio interview) also chides some new car owners who request — either for vanity or convenience reasons — special number plates. Some like a certain number combination, while others opt not to have the same number ending as their other vehicles have. These factors contribute to the delay in plate issuance. Our source assures us those requesting for special plates comprise only a small part of the overall picture, though.

Our source concedes, however, that of late the LTO has made some steps in reducing the time needed to register a vehicle. In the CSR process, for instance, the 15-day period is now cut to 10. But apparently, this is not enough. "The LTO appears to be vastly undermanned," our source laments.

"Even if starting today the LTO can do the job as fast at they say they could," our source continues, "the backlog of pending work is still huge. In our company alone, more than 4,000 vehicles are still in the process of registration. Add to that those from other manufacturers and the number easily reaches more than 10,000 units."

Unfortunately, a large number of those plate-less vehicles are presently on the road, whose owners will have to deal with the constant hassle of having to explain to traffic authorities the predicament they are in. And for that, they have good, old ineffectual governance and bureaucracy to thank.