Under LTO Memorandum Circular No. RTL-MC-03471 issued last July 17, all LTO officials and employees are directed to collect the adjusted fee of P140 for the motor vehicle registration system (MVRS) and P56 for the driver’s licensing system (DLS) transactions, plus 10 percent valued added tax (VAT).
Prior to this directive, a car owner pays a computer fee of P120 plus VAT when he registers his car, and a driver’s license applicant pays P48 plus VAT.
The build-own-operate (BOO) agreement for the LTO’s information technology project between the government and Stradcom Corp. authorizes the automatic adjustment of the computer fees.
The automatic price adjustment formula is provided for in Section 14.1 of the BOO agreement.
This provision also provides that collection of computer fees applies from the day the LTO initially used the IT-based services of Stradcom Corp. up to the end of the same year.
It also provides that on the first day of the following year and every year thereafter, the computer fees shall be automatically adjusted and shall be enforced up to the last day of the year.
The LTO offices in the National Capital Region (NCR) started automated operations in May 2001 but started to collect computer fees only in December 2001.
Following the contract provisions, the adjusted computer fees should have been implemented on the first day of 2002.