LTO: All vehicles to carry new license plates by 2016

MANILA, Philippines - All vehicles will carry the new standard license plates by 2016.

Speaking to reporters, Land Transportation Office (LTO) director Alfonso Tan Jr. said they aim to complete the distribution of standard plates for new registrants in the third quarter of the year.

“After that, we will address the plates for replacement,” he said. “We foresee that once we get this rolling, all the vehicles (in the country) will bear the standard plates.” 

Tan demonstrated yesterday the attachment of the new plates, with special screws that would make it difficult to remove the plates.

“The only way to remove them is to destroy the screws and destroy the plates,” he said.

The screws package comes with an instruction manual in English and Tagalog to make it easier for vehicle owners to attach them, LTO spokesman Jason Salvador said.

The new plates have alphanumeric combination printed in black with a white background.

The alphanumeric combination plates of public utility vehicles will also be in black but on yellow background.

Tan said they purposely removed the designs in the background of past plates to simplify the new plates.

Tan said the alphanumeric combination would be sacrificed if the background were retained.

“Studies show that next to the yellow and black combination, the most visible is black and white,” he said.

The new plates also have reflectorized sheeting to make them visible from afar and from any angle.

Each will also have a “third-plate” sticker displaying the license plate numbers.

The new plates for public utility vehicles will indicate the region where the registration was made.

Plates for public buses will carry the labels “city bus” or “provincial bus.” The “third plate” sticker will feature the vehicle’s routes.

Protocol plates issued to lawmakers will indicate the house of Congress where they belong and the years of the their term.