Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 5) — Senate Blue Ribbon Committee Chair Richard Gordon on Friday called for the resignation of Land Transportation Office officials for their failure to release more than 13 million motorcycle plates since 2013.
During the Senate panel’s hearing on the implementation of the Motorcycle Crime Prevention Act, Gordon lambasted LTO officials and blamed them for the increase over the years of riding-in-tandem crimes or those committed by motorcycle-riding criminals.
The Motorcycle Crime Prevention Act aims to prevent criminals from using motorcycles as get-away vehicles by imposing bigger, readable, and color-coded number plates.
Two years since the law was passed, the LTO still has millions of backlogs in motorcycle plate numbers.
“Enough is enough. We can no longer tolerate a situation where nothing is happening except people are being killed without the protection of the law and if they cannot do that then I demand the resignation of all the people of LTO na may kinalaman dyan (who are involved),” Gordon said.
“People are dying. People are losing their motorcycles to thieves. People are losing their bags, their cellphones,” Gordon said, adding there is blood in the hands of people in the LTO and dealers who are not doing their jobs.
From 2010 to 2020, the Philippine National Police has recorded over 36,000 riding-in-tandem crimes. From January to February this year alone, the PNP recorded 25 such crimes.
Some of these cases involve brazen killings in broad daylight.
However, authorities still find it difficult to trace the culprits because some motorcycles still do not have their plate numbers while the plate number of others were too small and cannot be read in the CCTV footage.
“Malaking tulong sa amin ang readable plate numbers at kung wala sila, napakaganda para sa atin na talagang masita itong mga motorcycle-riding suspects na ang kanilang motorsiklo ay walang plaka,” PNP Deputy Chief for Administration Guillermo Eleazar said.
[Translation: Readable plate numbers will be a big help to us, and in the absence of such, it’s good if we can apprehend motorcycle-riding suspects whose motorcycles have no license plates.]
For his part, LTO Chief Edgar Galvante explained they were already in the process of printing license plates, but this was stopped by a new law imposing a new size.
He said they were already able to print more than a million plates, but they had to halt the production when a stop order was filed in the Supreme Court.
“We apologize for not being able to do that,” Galvante said. “In fact, they are about to distribute and deliver 1.6 million na nacut na ito. Stamped na numero. Kaya lang pinatigil kasi hindi compliant sa lalabas na batas.”
[Translation: In fact, they are about to distribute and deliver 1.6 million which were already cut. The numbers were stamped. But this was stopped because it is no longer compliant with the new law]
But Gordon was not buying LTO’s explanation. He insisted the LTO had enough time to complete the task. Had this been done, Gordon believes many crimes would have been prevented.
“In the words of a famous man here in this country, p****ina. Mahiya naman tayo. I’m just quoting. Galit na ang tao sa inyo. Dapat ayusin niyo. Ang dami nang pinapatay, kinakana pa ninyo,” Gordon said.
[Translation: In the words of a famous man here in this country, p****ina. Have some sense of shame. I’m just quoting. The people are mad at you. You should fix this. Many people are dying and you’re not doing anything.]
The lawmaker went on with the dressing-down: “LTO is incompetent. It has no compassion. It is negligent. Wala kayong ginagawa. You have apathy. Wala kayong pakialam kung ano mangyari sa taong namamatay.”
[Translation: LTO is incompetent. It has no compassion. It is negligent. You’re not doing anything. You have apathy. You do not care about what happens to the people dying].
The LTO is expected to print about 19 million plate numbers by 2022. The Senate will continue its hearing on the matter on February 18.
