Once again we are confronted with horrific commercial bus accidents claiming the lives of passengers. And once again we see and read that the Land Transportation Office and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board are quick to look for faults and cast blame on the erring bus companies.
But have they ever done anything to minimize, if not prevent, the occurrence of such catastrophes? What really is the role of the LTO? What is its mandate? Is not one if its duties to try to make sure that vehicles are safe for both drivers and passersby? And how can it accomplish this duty? Is it not to see that the vehicles which are brought to its offices nationwide yearly are safe to traverse the roads? What, outside of its yearly collection of registration fees, does it do? Is there a vehicle owner who can say or point out that the LTO has inspected his/her vehicle for its roadworthiness? And yet every time one goes to the LTO for reregistration, one fills up a form that has items to be checked and these items concern the roadworthiness of the vehicle.
What is the only thing LTO inspectors (or, in truth, non-LTO persons who do the dirty work) do outside of the stenciling of chassis and engine numbers? That, ostensibly, is to flush out stolen engines or cars. And is that effective in ensuring vehicle safety? Car manufacturers do not bother about the LTO’s stencil requirements and they emboss their engine numbers deep down where it is very hard to get to the numbers to be stenciled. See Toyota engines! Where else in the world can one find an LTO equivalent that only collects fees and nothing else? Just look at the easily seen car plates. Is it not one of the purposes for installing a license plate at the back of a vehicle to give an onlooker the number of a hit-and-run vehicle? Or for a police car chasing a speeding car to immediately notify other police units of the license plate of the car being chased? And yet what does one see in many of these plates? Plates that are hardly readable.
And, going back to the bus accidents, the LTO and LTFRB have once again blared the “it’s their fault” trumpets. Tampered registration papers, mismatched license plates, poor brakes, etc. Do these government agencies not even have computers to give off warning signals that a bus is long due for inspection? Computers can be programmed, unless LTO’s computers are only programmed to record payments and collections. Does it not have a facility to check brakes, especially those of public transport?
I had a chance to reregister an old car in Australia and immediately upon entering their agency I was told to follow the cars ahead of me. There was a notice not to vacate the car. At each point an inspector checked my lights, horn, wipers, etc. telling me what to turn on, then an inspection of seat belts, tires (the groove was measured), engine, and brakes (by inspectors under a facility where the car passes over). There were manometers for measuring brake efficiency. The only time I was allowed to get out of the car was at the end of the inspection line when I had to pay and find out if my car passed the inspection or not.
The LTO today, I suppose, is saddled with the more important (to them) problem of producing new car plates and registration stickers. I had to wait two full months to get my registration stickers.
—ROCKY B. DENOGA,
rocden41@yahoo.com