The Land Transportation Office (LTO) said that most of the unissued license plates will be available by the end of 2023, clearing 90% of the backlog.
To make this happen, LTO chief Assistant Secretary Teofilo Guadiz III said that they would use their own plant to produce a percentage of required license plates before the end of 2022.
“Right now, we have already extended the operating hours of the LTO license plate manufacturing plant. It now operates even on Saturdays so that it can produce more replacement plates and reduce the backlog,” Guadiz said.
As for the plates that will not make it this year, Guadiz said that they plan to hire the services of a private company.
Last week, the agency has admitted that there are 2.3 million backlogs for vehicle replacement plates and 11.5 million for motorcycle license plates.
Valenzuela City 2nd District Rep. Eric Martinez, who sponsored the DOTr budget for 2023, blamed the budget cut. According to him, the transport agency had proposed a funding of Php 6.8 billion for the production of license plates but only Php 4.7 billion was approved by the Department of Budget and Management.
Fortunately, there is no reported backlog for license plates of newly registered vehicles, according to LTO.
As of October 3, more than 300,000 pairs of replacement plates have been produced according to data from the LTO plate making plant.
