The Land Transportation Office (LTO) has said that it will be implementing up to 24-hour shifts in its Quezon City plate stamping facility to deliver the long-overdue 10-million plate number backlog that was left by the past two administrations.

In a recent interview with ANC 24/7, LTO Assistant Secretary, Atty. Teofilo Guadiz III said that they have already looked for solutions to the plate backlog, and their answer is to add manpower, as well as implement 24-hour shifts in their plate stamping facility.

“We are looking for ways on how to address this plate backlog. First, we will double our manpower and put it on a 24-hour shift,” said Guadiz.

Guadiz also added during the interview that in the event the agency can no longer accommodate the plate backlog at a given time, the agency may have to get the services of a 3rd-party contractor to help them stamp the millions of number plates that are still in the backlog.

“Those plates that we can no longer process, we will just outsource it to resolve this problem,” added Guadiz in Filipino.

In an earlier statement, former LTO OIC, Atty. Romeo Vera Cruz has said that the agency will require at least PHP 6.8-billion in funding to address the plate number backlog.

According to the OIC, the agency has all the capabilities to produce plates for both motorcycles and four-wheeled vehicles. However, they still need to acquire additional funding so that the LTO can buy spare parts and get all of their engravers up and running.

“Wala pong problema sa pag-produce ng plaka because we have modern plate-making plant. Kapag mayroon pong plate eh gagawin po natin iyan. Our engravers are five years old na, may mga problema na po sa mga spare parts,” said Vera Cruz.

[There is no problem with producing plates because we have a modern plate-making plant. Once we have the plates, then we’ll work on them. Our engravers are five-years-old already. We have a problem with spare parts]

DOTr explains why we have an ongoing plate number backlog

In an August 2021 statement, the Department of Transportation (DOTr), which is the lead agency for LTO, clarified that issues from previous suppliers have led to the plate number backlog that we are facing up to this day. Additionally, in 2019, Republic Act 11235, which is commonly known to the motorcycle community as Doble Plaka Law, was signed, requiring a complete re-designing of a motorcycle’s number plate.

You can read the full story here.

South Korea promised to support the Philippines' Build, Better, More projects

Metro Manila Mayors firm and says NCAP will stay with joint statement