THE Land Transportation Office (LTO) is now producing around one million license plates per month, with its Chief, Assistant Secretary Atty. Vigor D. Mendoza II conducting almost a daily inspection of the stamping plant to ensure that there will be no glitches as the agency pushes to address the backlog for both the vehicle and motorcycle plates.
“We are now producing one million plates a month. We have dedicated machines that cater only to motor vehicles, and of course, focus din ang production para sa mas maraming backlog sa plaka ng motorsiklo,” said Mendoza.
Currently, there are 80,000 backlog for motor vehicles license plates and Mendoza said that with the current production rate, the LTO will be able to address them before the end of November this month.
The increased production rate, according to Mendoza, also guarantees that there will be available license plates for newly-bought vehicles—which is also a good news for owners of new cars who have been complaining in the past of long delay in the issuance of their plates.
“I have instructed all District Offices, Regional Directors that we should be able to cater to the current demand as far as motor vehicles are concerned. We estimate that the current demand for motor vehicle plates is around 2,000 vehicles a day. So times two dahil front and back ang plaka, so it’s 4,000 a day. We have that capacity, there’s no reason why a buyer who comes to you now will have to wait months in order to get their plates,” said Mendoza.
The target, he said, is for new vehicle owners to get their license plates within 7 to 10 days upon submissions of documents of their car.
The LTO, through the Department of Transportation headed by Secretary Jaime Bautista, has ordered around 15 million plates. At least eight machines are now working to expedite the production.
The bigger number of backlog is for the motorcycle plates which is around 13 million.
Most of the backlog is for the replacement of plates from the old green plates to the new white plates.
“With the current production rate, we will be able to wipe out the backlog for motorcycles by early 2025. Mas marami kase ito pero we are confident of addressing it, we are on the right track,” said Mendoza.
