LTO should get its act together

Trust the government to be on top of the heap at making the public transacting business with any of its agencies more miserable.

Republic Act No. 11032 aka “An Act Promoting Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Delivery of Government Services, Amending … the Anti-Red Tape Act of 2007” is such a big joke. Take for instance, the Land Transportation Office (LTO).

The main office at East Ave., Quezon City, is always bursting at the seams at any given business day with the sheer volume of vehicles that have to be brought in for compliance with all kinds of requirements. The drive-around for a space anywhere there to park one’s vehicle is an unmitigated nightmare.

Setting up branch offices in many other places “to promote ease in doing (LTO) business” has seldom helped since in most of those places chosen by the LTO’s “bright boys,” parking slots are just as woefully inadequate.

Don’t they ever use some common sense? Vehicle owners are often put at risk of getting their vehicles towed away while being parked on the streets. There’s simply nowhere else to go as whatever parking slots intended for public use are already reserved for its glorified personnel holding office there. Public service demands that they should be the ones parking on the streets to feel what these LTO planners really are.

And now comes this ridiculous idea of forcing owners of e-bikes and e-trikes to register them under pain of stiff fines or outright impoundment.

What’s next?

Require plate numbers and/or stickers on them when LTO has up to now failed to provide many regular vehicles with the much-vaunted new plates despite being already pre-paid eons ago?

And where are the stickers for the windshields and the plates which used to serve as the visible proof of current registration to stop traffic enforcers from harassing motorists about the status of their vehicles’ registration?

The backlog in the LTO’s issuance of those items is horrendous with no end to the public frustration in sight.

The LTO should first get its act together before imposing more requirements to burden taxpayers with.

Steve L. Monsanto,

lexsquare.firm@gmail.com