LTO: 1 M unregistered vehicles on the road daily

Over one million unregistered vehicles are being driven nationwide daily, Land Transportation Office (LTO) chief Assistant Secretary Reynaldo Berroya said yesterday.

Berroya estimated that some 1,320,811 unregistered vehicles are plying various routes along major roads each day, adding that he had recently discovered this information on unregistered vehicles from the 2005 database of the LTO.

This huge number of unregistered vehicles on the streets translates into government revenue losses of some P300 million annually, he added.

Berroya said that, based on official LTO records, the number of unregistered vehicles now plying major routes in the country are broken down as: 90,398 private cars; 269,800 utility vehicles (UVs); 12,416 sports utility vehicles (SUVs); 64,853 trucks; 8,177 public utility buses (PUBs); 895,014 motorcycles (both single and passenger tricycles) and 4,977 trailers.

Berroya has instructed the LTO’s legal team and technical personnel to find fast-track and long-term solutions to this problem.

He said one of the solutions they thought of was to offer amnesty for unregistered vehicles owners.

He said the LTO wants to resolve the issue and has no intention of putting burdens on the shoulders of vehicle owners: "The agency is just fixing everything because, once all of these vehicles are registered, the government’s profits will increase and we will be able to help our compatriots whose vehicles are not registered."

The agency is also looking for a win—win solution to this problem, he said. "In fact, this is the reason why we are pushing quickly in finishing other units of the One-Stop-Shop Mobile Patrol Office or better known as E-Patrol to dispatch to other far-flung areas nationwide."

He said the objective of the LTO is to make it easy for vehicle owners to register their vehicles.