TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY JOSE ?Ping? de Jesus did right in canceling the bidding, scheduled for today, for the production of new drivers? licenses. The fact alone that the Land Transportation Office (LTO) seems in a hurry to bid out the project (to favored bidders, according to critics) is a giveaway.

There are many mysteries going on at the LTO and De Jesus should look closely into its affairs. For one, it appears that the LTO is the private preserve of the Iglesia ni Cristo. Most contracts are awarded by the LTO to members of the INC. In fact, the present LTO chief, Assistant Transportation Secretary Virgie Torres, is a well-known INC member. The owner of the present printer of drivers? licenses, Amalgamated Motors Inc. (Ampi), is Filemon Cuevas, a senior member of the INC.

Aside from the issue of new drivers? licenses, which we will discuss later, there is the issue of the late delivery by the LTO of vehicle plates. It takes the LTO contractor at least three months to produce the plates. During that time, owners of new vehicles become victims, repeatedly, of unscrupulous traffic enforcers. Although the owners have receipts showing that they have paid all fees to the LTO, traffic enforcers still arrest them and fine them P900 each time allegedly for having expired conduction stickers which are good only, they say, for one week.

Why does the LTO allow the use of conduction stickers for only one week when it cannot deliver vehicle plates within one week? It is the fault of the LTO, not the owners, that the vehicles have no new plates, so why punish the owners?

After the driver or owner has paid the fine, he can be arrested again for the same offense.

Now back to drivers? licenses. More than three million drivers? licenses are printed every year. At P150 per card, this gives the long-time contractor, Ampi, P500 million a year. Ampi has been the LTO?s card printer since the time of President Ferdinand Marcos. It has been deeply entrenched in the LTO for the past three decades. But its contract expired in 2003. So for the past seven years, it has been operating and has been paid P500 million a year, without a contract. In sum, from 2003 to the present, Ampi was paid by the LTO/DOTC P3.5 billion without a valid contract with the government.

What should have been done in the first place? The basic rule in government procurement is that when a supplier?s contract expires, the project is opened for public bidding. Therefore, when the Ampi contract expired in 2003, a new contract should have been publicly bidded out immediately and every year thereafter because the budget for the printing of drivers? licenses is a yearly appropriation in the national budget. But the LTO did no such thing. For seven years, it did business with Ampi without a valid contract.

With the change of administration, the LTO knew that it could not continue with its questionable activities. Last June, the previous administration tried to bid out the contract for 2011 (after seven years, he he he). However, many potential bidders protested because the terms of reference (TOR) clearly favored Ampi (is that a surprise?). When the bidders made their protest public, the LTO suspended the bidding.

However, Torres, the new LTO chief, resurrected the bidding process and scheduled it for Sept. 16 with exactly the same TOR. Some of the bidders wrote to De Jesus and complained that the TOR clearly favored the present supplier and its partners. The DOTC told the LTO to postpone the bidding while the TOR was being reviewed.

In an attempt to circumvent the review of the TOR, the LTO issued two bid bulletins. The first one answered the questions of the bidders but did not change the skewed TOR. The second bulletin scheduled the bidding on Sept. 24, exactly one week after it was postponed. This is the bidding that De Jesus stopped.

What are the questionable provisions of the TOR?

1. The LTO wants to go back to drivers? licenses made of paper, instead of plastic cards.

There is no country in the world that has moved from plastic cards to paper licenses. In fact, almost all countries are now shifting from paper to plastic cards because the latter are more durable. The Philippines will be the only country in the world that will go back to paper licenses.

Furthermore, there are environment-friendly and biodegradable plastic cards (PETG) available in the market which would address environmental concerns without sacrificing durability and security. One such biodegradable card is the UMID card of the Social Security System (SSS).

The European Union has even issued a directive mandating all EU countries to use plastic drivers? license cards to stop the proliferation of fake drivers? licenses made of paper. All the states in the US use plastic cards.

There are international ISO standards to ensure that drivers? license cards are fake-proof. Only plastic cards, and not paper cards, are compliant with these standards.

Why are we regressing while all other countries are progressing?

2. The TOR for the bidding favor a specific supplier for a card printer which is Toppan of Japan because only its model, Visage CP400, meets the requirements?a clear violation of the Government Procurement Act or RA 9184.

3. The TOR also require that the cards be made of security paper manufactured by a company that has experience in high security bank-

notes and passports in the Philippines. That would limit the qualified bidders to only one supplier?Arjowiggins of France which now supplies the paper for the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Department of Foreign Affairs.