This is why people laugh with derision when President Duterte says he wants red tape cut and he hates corruption.
As if we didn’t have enough problems with the COVID response and the chaotic vaccination program, we also have to face more suffering at the Land Transportation Office (LTO).
From an average wait of half a day at the LTO to register a private motor vehicle pre-Duterte, now it can take you about a week or more, in the middle of a raging pandemic, just to register your car.
Those from lower income households whose vehicles are old models would have to fork out their entire COVID ayuda just to register their cars, which are a necessity given the acute shortage of mass transportation in this pandemic.
In the worst case, they might just have to retire their old-model cars, because the inspectors can always find something wrong in any vehicle, under the new Motor Vehicle Inspection System. The MVIS checks not just for vehicular emissions but also for “roadworthiness.” Traditional jeepneys, multicabs, old buses, you’re toast.
There is no official definition for roadworthiness, so you can just imagine the infinite ways by which inspectors, pointing to a machine, can declare that your vehicle is not roadworthy. Motoring groups have listed 61 vehicle parts to be checked under the MVIS.
Any subjective evaluation in government service is prone to corruption. We see this in agencies such as the Bureau of Customs. Those vehicle inspection centers will soon be raking it in, like in the graft-ridden BOC.
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Just last Jan. 25, the Clean Air Movement of the Philippines (CAMPI) together with the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) staged a protest action against the MVIS being conducted by private motor vehicle testing centers in Luzon and the Visayas.
You can google reports about the protest action. And you can be warned, from my personal experience.
Last Wednesday I had my company-issued sport utility vehicle sent to a testing center prior to registration. The LTO branch near our Port Area office in Manila sent the driver to a testing center in Paco that apparently handles SUVs and motorcycles. The emission testing centers used to be located near the LTO offices. The center in Paco is operated by a company called Welcome Export Inc. Is the company engaged in export or vehicle testing?
My SUV is three years old; it undergoes complete tune-up at the dealership’s service center following the schedule suggested by the company for optimum vehicle performance. Its latest tune-up, which cost P29,442.83, was only last October.
I have been driving for ages and I know when something is wrong with a car. My SUV runs smoothly; the dealership’s service is premium (and so are the fees).
The Welcome Export inspection took about 45 minutes – far from the 11 to 12 minutes touted by proponents of the MVIS. CAMPI and the VACC point out that even if all the 138 testing facilities planned nationwide by the government are completed, these will not be enough to handle the 20 million motor vehicles requiring registration.
The driver was told that my car failed the test, so it will need re-inspection, which will cost another P900. I have with me a checklist that says my car failed the test for brakes, headlights and plate lights. (What’s wrong? They work perfectly fine as far as I’m concerned.)
At the dealership’s casa yesterday, the mechanic was just as dumbfounded; didn’t they give the SUV a thorough check just three months ago? There’s been no increase in my vehicle use; the lockdowns have limited my car trips largely to home and office within Metro Manila. In fact my vehicle use has been reduced because I can’t go to TV5 in Mandaluyong for studio taping five days a week of our OneNews show “The Chiefs.”
The dealership’s service center nevertheless accepted the SUV for an inspection and overnight stay. My preliminary service bill: P6,008.67, including P1,050 for “car care” and “miscellaneous.”
You can see why this latest innovation in LTO inefficiency invites the payment of “facilitation fees.” It’s happy days again for fixers at LTO. These are the folks who deserve Tokhang and Double Barrel (and COVID).
There are reports of exasperated motorists simply paying grease money (a typical amount is P1,000) to get their roadworthiness certification ASAP. And Duterte says he is “galit talaga” at corruption? LOL.
The address in the Welcome Export Inc. receipt is Dimayuga Compound, Cabrera Street, Dolores, Taytay, Rizal. Does the company pay business fees to the city of Manila or to Taytay?
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The CAMPI and VACC raised nine points in opposing the implementation of the new MVIS.
These include the lack of consultation with stakeholders on the testing procedures, and the absence of testing centers in several areas with heavy vehicle density. Some 1,000 emission testing centers will be put out of business, and the two protesting groups are demanding transparency in the award of the franchise to conduct the new testing. At this point, it looks like this deal was awarded simply over a prolonged mah-jongg session in Ayala Alabang.
And of course there’s the unconscionable jump, especially amid this crippling pandemic, from the previous emission testing fee of P500 to the current P1,800 to P2,700. Motorcycles and tricycles are charged an initial P600, with more for re-inspection.
Why does this government allow ordinary people to be milked dry to enrich a handful of well-connected individuals? It deserves the question of the times: Sino vacumita?
It’s like the explosion of toll roads in Metro Manila. Providing good roads to the citizenry is a mandatory duty of government. Tax money is used to build a road, for which steep toll rates are collected by a private operator ostensibly for maintenance. We make the already fantabulously rich richer. Why can’t the government manage public roads?
After this LTO torture, I fervently believe the administration is engaged in a systematic campaign to fix everything that ain’t broke, just to make life more miserable for everybody.
LTO chief Edgar Galvante strikes me as a decent enough guy, so he shouldn’t relish the prospect of spending his retirement living down responsibility for this MVIS atrocity.
In May 2019, Galvante was reported to have said that maximizing the use of technology in the LTO system helped “make services faster, more efficient, convenient and comfortable, and more importantly, to check corruption.”
If motorists weren’t weeping from frustrated rage, we could die laughing.