Car plate shortage spawns new racket

Willie Nep’s “Pang-GULO ng Pilipinas” is extended for one night only. Last Saturday’s show that happens only every six years expectedly was a full house.  The presidentiables and the public ask for the chance to see it before voting.

Catch it on Friday, May 6, 8 p.m., at the Music Museum, Greenhills Commercial Center, San Juan City. For tickets call TicketWorld (02) 8919999 or Music Museum (02) 7216726.

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Bureaucrats continually think up new rackets. The worst of them are at the Land Transportation Office (LTO). There they exploit the festering shortage of vehicle registration plates and the database mess.

Here’s how a vehicle owner renewing his registration is victimized. He goes to emission testing. There he is told that the LTO database is unable to verify the old registration. Supposed reason: there is no plate number on file. He buys the required Third Party Liability insurance. Again he is told he is not in the LTO database. He proceeds to the LTO for vehicle file retrieval and encoding of the plate number info. He is told that the process would take a week. But it can be shortened for a “fee” of P100. He must pay immediately, lest he be fined P200 per week of late registration, plus 50% of total registration cost after one month.

There are 15 million registered vehicles. At P100 per facilitation, the racket’s potential take is P1.5 billion.

For that the LTO crooks can thank Transport Sec. Joseph Abaya, who caused the plate shortage and database fiasco. Aiding him were Undersecretaries Rene Limcaoco and Jose Perpetuo Lotilla (now resigned).

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The LTO mess is partly to blame for the present crime wave nationwide. That malady was not unforeseen. On Nov. 8, 2013, I had warned about it in this space. Excerpts:

“Brace yourselves for a crime surge. Criminals of all types – from street pickpockets and drug peddlers, to bank robbers and kidnappers – will be having a field day. Getaways will be easy. They will use vehicles with no license plates. They won’t be detected. They would be mixing with innocent vehicles that similarly have no license plates. In fact, no vehicles will have plates.

“No one will be spared from crime.

“The government will not be issuing vehicle license plates soon. It will not even be registering new vehicles, or renewing old ones.

“A monumental lapse is causing the total breakdown in vehicle procedures of the Dept. of Transportation and Communications (DOTC). In bidding out the separate contracts for vehicle registration and license platemaking, the DOTC did not secure the required MYOA (Multi-Year Obligational Authority).

“An MYOA is a document issued by the Dept. of Budget and Management (DBM) to agencies with multi-year projects. In the MYOA, the agency must commit to include in Congress’ annual appropriations its yearly payments to private contractors.

“Without an MYOA, agencies are forbidden from proceeding with any purchase of goods and services that are to be paid over a period of more than one budget year.

“No one has taken to task Sec. Abaya or his two subordinates.

“Bidders for both projects suspect to be deliberate the DOTC’s non-securing of such basic document. (Limcaoco and Lotilla) are responsible for the missing MYOAs. P-Noy assured in a TV hookup that he has appointed persons of unquestionable integrity who perform their duties well.

“The MYOA is a requirement under the Government Procurement Reform Act of 2003. It was devised to uphold the sanctity of government contracts, ensure complete and prompt payment of installments, add checks and balances to agency contracting, prevent extortion by agency fund approvers and releasers, and streamline the budgeting process. In guidelines issued 2009 by the Government Procurement Policy Board, agencies were directed to secure the MYOA from the DBM before proceeding with any purchase of goods or services that would take more than a year to complete. In compliance with the GPPB guidelines, the Commission on Audit on the same day instructed all state auditors strictly to enforce the MYOA requirement. All Cabinet secretaries subsequently issued similar instructions to subordinate and attached agencies.

“The DBM in 2010 required agencies not only to apply for but also include the approved MYOA, specific to the project, in invitations to bid. Failure to do so would mean no funding for the procurement.

“In both the biddings for the computerized vehicle registration database and the metal platemaking, the DOTC did not post any MYOA. In fact, it did not have any such document.

“The government needs to database the registrations and issue new license plates to 5.3 million motor vehicles and ten million motorcycles.

“Old plates will be replaced because crime syndicates have managed to produce these on their own, and mess up the present database.

“The P8.2-billion computerization is for seven years; the P3.85-billion platemaking, for three years. Both are to be implemented by LTO. Both projects were bid out early this year. Due to anomalies, a rebidding will be held for the database, while lawsuits have been filed to stop the platemaking.

“The LTO hardly has plates left for new vehicles, and stickers and tags for renewal of old ones. It takes months for owners to get the legal markings to use their vehicles.

“Meanwhile, anticrime groups are being advised to coordinate with the police on how to deal with a crime surge.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ, (882-AM).

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