LTO blames card case

The Land Transportation Office (LTO) said yesterday it traced the cause of “fading” driver’s licenses issued in 2004 and 2005 to motorists placing their license cards in a plastic case.

“When kept in a man’s wallet in the back pants pocket, the plastic case becomes something like an oven that cooks the driver’s license and transfers the thermal printed information on the adjacent plastic, thus causing the fading,” LTO chief Alberto Suansing said.

He told reporters during a press briefing that there is nothing wrong with the datacard dye sublimation technology used by Amalgamated Motors of the Philippines-Megadata (AMPI-Megadata), the firm that supplies the licenses, because it is the same technology used for national identification cards in the United States, United Kingdom, and some Asian and European countries.

Suansing said that out of more than three million driver’s licenses renewed, only 10,000 defective cards were replaced by AMPI for free. Almost all the defective licenses belonged to men since women just kept their license in their handbags, he added.

Suansing said AMPI-Megadata has started applying an additional protective coating to the driver’s license at no additional cost to the public.

He said a new type of driver’s license, which will be the subject of a public bidding soon, will include biometric data and be machine-readable, just like the new Philippine passport.

LTO chief admits kin used ‘8’ plate

In another issue concerning the LTO, Suansing admitted to congressmen Wednesday that his son-in-law used the special “8” protocol plate for congressmen even if he is not a lawmaker.

“The last time I saw my son-in-law driving a car with an 8 plate was sometime in 1998 or 1999, when he married my daughter,” he told Agusan del Sur Rep. Rodolfo Plaza, who inquired about Michael Conde allegedly using a protocol plate.

“If I see him using that plate again now, I will not only arrest him, dadagukan ko pa siya (I will hit him),” he adds.

Suansing also told the House transportation committee, chaired by Bacolod City Rep. Monico Puentevella, that he does not interfere in Conde’s business, even if Plaza showed that Suansing was among the incorporators of a bogus foundation called Sagip-Buhay Para sa Mamamayan.

He said he did not know about his wife and children being among the firm’s stockholders, and denied being involved in the foundation or signing incorporation papers.

“How can you not know about this fraudulent foundation when it even has a signboard in front of your house?” Plaza asked Suansing.

The Puentevella committee is investigating the enforcement of Executive Order 400, which regulates the issuance of protocol plates for government officials by the LTO. – With Delon Porcalla