LTO’s ‘No Plate, No Travel’ policy
Atty. Jerome G. Neri
The Scrutineer
HOLY Week marked the beginning of the implementation of the Land Transportation Office’s “No Plate, No Travel” policy. The car dealers claim that the LTO has no plates available, hence the large number of new cars running around without plates. The LTO says that the plates are there and it is the car dealers that are not claiming the plates for their owners. Thus, this great and just government of ours decided to punish the consumers for something that is either the car dealers’ fault or the LTOs fault. For the whole month of March, the LTO was warning the public about the strict implementation of this policy.
Driving around on Maundy Thursday, I did not see a single car running around without a plate number. The early campaign by the LTO of the strict implementation of their number one priority, the all important no plates, no travel policy, was working. The roads were completely free of the menace of cars without plates. However, the LTO are not that cold-hearted. There were a lot of land transportation violations by motorists that I witnessed during the Holy Week that are common violations in during this time, which the LTO tolerates, as it is not as important and urgent as not having a plate number on a brand new car. It is probably the LTO showing that they have some heart during a long holiday as long as the car has a plate number.
Majority of the jeepneys and buses I saw were so overloaded that there were passengers literally hanging outside the vehicle. I even saw private pickups full of people standing on the bed side by side. There were motorcycles with five people on it, yes five! I saw a dump truck full of people at the back, at least 50 people. At night, about 50 percent of the tricycles had no lights, and they were running on poorly lit municipal roads. The LTO does not seem to care about dangerous motoring practices, especially on long holidays — so what if a few lives are lost as long as the vehicles have plate numbers.
VIOS CUP. The Vios Cup is a one-make circuit race of identically prepared Toyota Vios cars. At present, this series has the biggest grid in all of Philippine Motorsports. Now on its second season, they are bringing the races around the country. The very good news is that the second leg will be held here in Cebu at the SRP. For three days, from May 15 to 17, the SRP will be closed and made into a racetrack.
During these days with the SRP closed, for sure Cebu will experience heavy traffic. The traffic jam that will be caused by the Vios Cup should be one that the Cebuanos should tolerate and not whine about as this will be the first Circuit race in Cebu since the First Philippine Grand Prix, held at the reclamation area in 1969, or 46 years ago. There is a big chance that this will be a one-off event as I don’t think it will be possible to close down the SRP once the new SM Mall opens.
The first leg was held at the Clark speedway where rookie and Cebuano, Daniel Miranda did very well, finishing on the podium after starting dead last in a race with 22 cars on the grid. For the second leg and onwards, Toyota Cebu City will be fielding a team composed of more Cebuano Drivers. We may see the likes of Jette Calderon, Jess Garcia, Lord Seno and Charlie Pages participating in this series. So fellow Cebuanos, let’s all go watch and support our local drivers on the Vios Cup.
