LTO sets reform plan

Land Transportation Office (LTO) Secretary Reynaldo Berroya has set an ambitious target for himself: to achieve a clean and graft-ridden agency before the year 2007 ends.

"LTO will then be more than a government agency," Berroya, who was appointed by President Arroyo as LTO officer-in-charge last Nov. 2, 2006, told The STAR.

Berroya vowed to work for a better LTO with service-oriented employees to satisfy the people.

"Certainly, we are trying to reform the organization into something more responsive so the people will not complain," he said.

Berroya who is also the concurrent head of the LTO-National Capital Region (NCR), said the agency has integrated all programs of the LTO.

Since LTO is basically a law enforcement agency, Berroya said they have started strengthening their law enforcement units through internal cleansing, reorganization, relief of those found guilty of graft and corruption, as well as invigorating the personnel.

The LTO had started what is dubbed as the "rider’s course," the motorcycle-riding course of the agency, for its law enforcement agents. He said just recently they have purchased more than 100 motorcycles to be used by LTO enforcers. The motorcycles will be distributed nationwide to support the agency’s law enforcement activities.

"We have a lot of patrol cars aside from the riders of motorbikes. So we are re-organizing them to come out with a very potent law enforcement organization," he said.

He cited the enhancement of the Traffic Violation System (TVS) for a more extensive and vigorous law enforcement campaign. This is in partnership with its information technology provider, Stradcom Corp.

TVS is an application that enables LTO apprehending officers, verify information regarding motorist that violate road safety, traffic rules and regulations. It provides law enforcers access on the spot and obtain information for verification while on the field.

"The purpose of this is to check on any vehicle if it was registered or carnapped or it has any violation. We have special gadgets and this TVS is tied up with our database — IT system," Berroya told The STAR.

The arresting LTO personnel will use wireless technology called General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) to get access to accurate and timely information from the LTO database for vehicle records and their corresponding traffic violations, through the use of the popular wireless phone "Blackberry 7290".

Berroya said they also have collateral projects like Oplan Balik Rehistro, E-Patrol, Driver’s Licensing Renewal Center (DLRC), LTO Kiosk, Interconnectivity, Harmonization of Motor Vehicle Regulation and Driving Academy.

He said the LTO discovered more than 1.3 million vehicles which were not registered for the past five years. About 68 percent of these motor vehicles are motorcycles and tricycles.