LTO-7 issues 33,140 certificates of registration

CEBU, Philippines — The Land Transportation Office-7 has cleared all the new motor vehicle registrations that were submitted by the dealers in January to March 3 this year.

The transportation office has released a total of 33,140 Motor Vehicle Certificate of Registrations on Friday, March 13, 2020.

There were 26,919 registrations released for motorcycles and 6,221 for four-wheel vehicles.

“We have zeroed out the transactions submitted from January to March 3, 2020. Over 33,000 Certificate of Registrations were released on March 13. It is not true that the process will take five to six months. Once the documents are completed and submitted on time, we will process that per our Citizen’s Charter guidelines. We want to be transparent to the public and inform you with our procedures,” said LTO-7 Director Victor Emmanuel Caindec in a statement.

Three reasons were cited on the delay of the processing -- incomplete documents, late submission of the papers as some of the dealers submit them by batch whether weekly or monthly, and some dealers are not accredited to process the registration.

Caindec stressed some of the dealers have many branches but some branches are not accredited by LTO.

He said that dealers use the accredited branch to process applications for non-accredited branch, which is a violation of the LTO rules.

In fact, LTO-7 has issued show cause orders on five motorcycle dealers who did not comply on the accreditation rules.

LTO is persistent on the “no registration, no travel” policy. A motorist apprehended without registration will pay a hefty fine of P12,000--P10,000 for no registration and P2,000 for reckless driving.

LTO-7 advises the buyers to check the dealer’s credibility on compliance of the LTO rules and regulations before buying a motorcycle or vehicle.

“The motorist should secure a registration first before travelling on the road to avoid penalties and apprehension,” Caindec said. JMD (FREEMAN)