The transportation department inaugurated its own plant for the production of license plates on Tuesday, one of the answers to the roughly 8.2-million plate backlog from 2015.
Transportation Secretary Arthur P. Tugade said that with the new plate-making plant, the Land Transportation Office (LTO) can start manufacturing vehicle plates “in a manner that is fast and efficient.”
“The LTO had a lot on its plate when we took over. There was a huge backlog in license cards, while the court stopped the distribution of plates,” Tugade said.
To recall, a stay order on the release of 700,000 modernized license plates was issued against Department of Transportation (DOTr) due to tax issues. It was rescinded by the Supreme Court in January.
There is a backlog of roughly 8.2 million vehicle plates that started from January 2015 to December 2017.
“We are resolving the issue one by one and by now, we already have license plates, which will also have five years of validity. Not only will we distribute vehicle plates, we will also be manufacturing them ourselves,” Tugade said.
The DOTr plant is host to seven manual embossing machines that can produce up to 22,000 plates per day.
These machines are already calibrated and operational, with another machine expected to arrive in July and operational by August 2018.
The plate-making machines were part of the contract of Trojan Computer Forms Manufacturing Corp. and JH. Tonnjes E.A.S.T. GmbH Joint Venture, who won the contract for the procurement of motor vehicle and motorcycle license plates to address the backlog from July 2016 onward.
The plant’s inauguration coincided with the LTO’s 106th Founding
Anniversary.
Image credits: Nonoy Lacza