Posted at 06/14/2012 7:32 AM | Updated as of 06/14/2012 9:31 AM
MANILA, Philippines - The Land Transportation Office (LTO) stopped issuing driver’s licenses since Monday, citing a “system problem” on the part of Amalgamated Motors Philippines Inc. (Ampi), that supplies the license card.
“We encountered problems in the system and the problem was resolved already as per latest report,” said LTO Executive Director Alfonso Tan in a text message on Wednesday afternoon.
The cause of the “system problem’ was not revealed. Tan only said that the LTO resumed processing applications for driver’s license on Wednesday afternoon.
Reports said that the “system problem” could be pinpointed to the new license design adopted by Ampi. Tan, however, refused to comment.
“Right now, [the problem] was caused by a system problem. We disallowed the new design, pending evaluation and approval by the LTO and the DOTC [Department of Transportation and Communications],” added Tan.
Earlier, Ampi and Realtime Data Management Services Inc. successfully sought an injunction before the Regional Trial Court in Quezon City against the bidding for the supply and delivery of driver’s license cards to the LTO.
The injunction was issued on June 1.
The DOTC said it will appeal the decision before the Court of Appeals (CA). It recently said that it was in discussions with government lawyers to have the injunction lifted.
“The DOTC, through the Office of the Solicitor General [OSG], will elevate before the CA the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction by a Quezon City court in relation to the bidding of the new LTO IT system,” the agency said in an earlier statement.
The OSG said the trial court’s decision was a violation of the Constitution. “The ruling made by Judge Afable E. Cajigal of RTC-Branch 96 was an outrageous and flagrant violation of Republic Act 8975, which prohibits the issuance by lower courts of orders of injunction, among others, against national government infrastructure projects,” the OSG was quoted as saying in the statement.
The DOTC already started the bidding process for the P8.2-billion LTO-IT project in anticipation of the expiration of the contract with Stradcom Corp. in February next year. The new IT system will provide a viable and long-term solution to address the previous system’s issues.
Under the present automation set-up of the LTO, key data such as vehicle registration are handled by a third-party provider and not by the government. The 13-year-old LTO IT system is no longer responsive to current land transportation regulation requirements, said the DOTC.
“For more than a decade, the weaknesses, loopholes and oversights of the original contract have become evident. More important, the government does not own the system, does not hold the data, and had to pass through a third party-solutions provider to access the data,” the DOTC said.
The new LTO-IT system, once in place, will make it easier for authorities to access relevant vehicle information specially in tracing stolen vehicles. The system will interface seamlessly with another Road Transportation IT Infrastructure Project phase, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) component.
Once the automation systems of LTO and LTFRB are up and running, the government will be able to eliminate cases of public utility vehicles (PUVs) securing an LTFRB franchise without LTO registration, as well as PUVs that are registered with the LTO but has no LTFRB franchise.
No comments:
Post a Comment