THE Land Transportation Office (LTO) clarified that the mandatory inspection of motor vehicles at private motor vehicle inspection centers (PMVICs) remain suspended, as earlier ordered by Department of Transportation (DOTr) Secretary Art Tugade
LTO Chief, Assistant Secretary Edgar Galvante, also clarified that PMVICs were not ordered to stop their operations and that motor vehicle owners still have the option to have their vehicles tested for roadworthiness and compliance with the Clean Air Act either at a PMVIC or at a private emission testing center (PETC) with the required LTO visual inspection.
“The operation of PMVICs were not suspended. They can still operate. What was suspended was the mandatory inspection at PMVICs and the implementation of geographical area of responsibility (GAOR). It means in areas where there are PMVICs, vehicle owners can freely choose whether they want to have their vehicle inspected at the PMVIC or PETC prior to vehicle registration,” said Asec. Galvante.
The LTO chief made the clarification in response to a statement released on Wednesday by Senator Grace Poe saying that her office had received information that some PMVICs in some provinces have resumed mandatory motor vehicle inspections despite the DOTr’s standing suspension order.
To recall, Transport Secretary Tugade issued an instruction in August directing all regional offices of the LTO to suspend the mandatory inspection and testing of vehicles at PMVICs.
Tugade also ordered the suspension of mandatory vehicle testing within GAORs. The suspension of the mandatory vehicle testing at PMVICs, and the suspension of the GAORs paved the way for a thorough review of the policy, the DOTr said.
Meanwhile, Galvante said vehicle owners might have misinterpreted the LTO’s rollout of a new information technology (IT) system linking PMVICs with LTO offices with the aim of optimizing the agency’s Motor Vehicle Inspection and Registration System (MVIRS), as a return of the mandatory vehicle inspections at the PMVICs.
Galvante explains that the new IT system rolled out by the LTO called the Land Transportation Management System (LTMS) not only intends to optimize the use of the MVIRS, but also aims to gather sufficient baseline data to assess the status of motor vehicles in the country in terms of roadworthiness and safety.
Galvante added that in areas where LTO offices are without LTMS or in areas where there is LTMS presence but no existing PMVICs, results of emission testing done by PETCs will be accepted for registration by the LTO office, subject to their visual inspection of the vehicle.
“The new memorandum issued by LTO is intended to rollout the Motor Vehicle Inspection and Registration System, which is one of the six core modules of the LTMS. It is not for the mandatory GAOR implementation, but a rollout of the LTMS MVIRS. Even with the current memo, PETC results will still be accepted and will be uploaded in the LTO’s record system,” said Galvante.
According to the LTO, on the average, 35,000 vehicle registration renewals are done in a day. Before the current implementation of the new IT system, data from PMVICs only account for 5 percent or for 1,800 daily transactions. With the new IT system, the LTO aims to increase this to just 20 percent or to 7,000 transactions a day. As such, the LTO says, 80 percent of vehicle registration renewals are not affected and are still being tested at PETCs.
With regard to the scope of inspection, PMVIC facilities conduct full roadworthiness test for the vehicle, including emission test, as opposed to PETCs, which conduct only emission testing.
To address issues concerning the cost of inspection, PMVIC owners heeded the call of DOTr and LTO for them to charge the same amount of testing/inspection fee with that of PETCs. Reinspection or retest fees were also waived.
“Transport agencies have been pursuing road transport improvement initiatives to mitigate the rise in vehicular accidents, and fully uphold road safety. The PMVIC program is just one of the basket of solutions to address roadworthiness of vehicles. Lives will be saved if all vehicles travelling the roads are truly roadworthy,” Asec. Galvante said.
Meanwhile, Galvante said the LTO is still gathering data to support an evaluation of the GAORs implementation that was ordered suspended by Secretary Tugade.