What’s next for Jay Art Tugade?

It’s rare to see government officials in the Philippines step down from office. They cling to their positions like leeches, come hell or high water. Unlike in other countries where public officials offer to resign when controversies crop up, it’s the other way around here in our land of mayhem.

More often than not, appointed or elected officials vacate their office only when they’re asked to step down. They are then given a chance to “resign,” often citing “personal reasons,” to allow them to save face.

Thus, it came as a surprise when Land Transportation Office chief Jay Art Tugade dropped a bomb on Monday, tendering his irrevocable resignation effective June 1, 2023, almost six months since he assumed office last Nov. 17, 2022. This came amid the controversial shortage in the plastic cards for drivers license.

It’s no secret that Tugade and Transportation Secretary Jaime “Jimmy” Bautista did not get along very well. It made a turn for the worse when the government ran out of plastic cards for the driver’s license. There was a lot of finger-pointing between the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and the LTO and later on, an exchange of tirades and varying timelines.

Atty. Jay Tugade, in his resignation letter, says that by stepping down, he wanted to show that he was the kind of leader who was willing to be accountable for what happened.

Says he in his resignation letter sent to President Marcos through Sec. Jimmy on May 22, 2023:

“The many achievements of the Land Transportation Office, however, have been overshadowed by the shortage in the plastic cards for the Drivers License that remain to be under procurement with DOTr. It is for this reason, as the Head of the Agency, despite having no fault or negligence in my office; I hereby respectfully tender my irrevocable resignation effective June 1, 2023.”

“While I remain firm on my position that my office is not remiss of its duties, I am stepping down from my position to show the brand of leadership espoused by this administration; which is to be accountable to the people. Further; so that Sec. Jimmy will have a free hand to choose who he can work best with,” Tugade said.

What do I make of this? I see it as a class act on the part of Tugade. And maybe he was being pragmatic, too. He must have realized that there was nothing much he would be able to implement or achieve if the DOTr and the LTO are not aligned.

Something – or someone – had to give and in this case, Tugade must have felt it had to be him.

And with rising tensions between the Marcos camp and the tandem of Sara Duterte-Gloria Arroyo, perhaps Jay didn’t think he could run to his father, Transportation Secretary Art Tugade, who was Rody Duterte’s Transportation secretary, for help.

Perhaps, it is for these reasons that he decided to just step down.

With his resignation, there’s no more reason for any shortage or problems at the LTO, I guess. The buck now stops at the DOTr and it’s now up to Sec. Jimmy to fix these problems.

It would be good to finally have an LTO chief Sec. Jimmy can trust and work with. He and his team have been making great strides at the airport because they are all aligned. Note that any government department in conflict with its agencies could derail and hurt public services.

I’ve never met Tugade Jr. but to be fair, in that short span of time, I appreciate some of the initiatives he has done at the LTO.

Accomplishments

The young Tugade cited some of these achievements in his resignation letter:

These include issuing the implementing rules and regulations for the Vintage Vehicle Registration Act which took effect April 17, 2023; the imposition of price ceilings driving schools can charge; the grant of discounts on the Motor Vehicle Users Charge for battery and hybrid electric vehicles amounting to 30 percent and 15 percent respectively; the removal of Periodic Medical Exam required for holders of five and 10 years drivers license effective April 16, 2023; and the prohibition on the confiscation of license plates or the “baklas plaka” scheme.

LTO also implemented digitalization efforts including online registration for private motor vehicles; adoption of a mobile-based device for real time uploading of motor vehicle violations and of course the soon-to-happen roll out of digital licenses.

Tugade’s LTO was also able to open more than 10 offices, bringing agency services closer to the people.

“I am also happy to report that our 2023 first quarter performance is 18.5 percent higher than the first quarter of 2022. For the first quarter 2023, we generated P7.9 billion.

“For the full year 2022, we generated almost P26 billion (for) the National Treasury,” Tugade also said in his resignation letter.

A critical agency

Six years or six months is not enough to rid the LTO of its decades-long bureaucratic cobwebs.

I hope the next LTO chief will continue the good initiatives Tugade put in place but there’s still a lot of work to do.

My personal wish is for the agency to improve the quality of drivers in the country by coming up with stricter driving tests; for the LTO to totally abolish fixers and for frontline services to really drastically improve. 

As for Tugade, I heard he may still be part of the Marcos administration. Now what position may that be? We’ll just have to wait and see.

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