The Land Transportation Office (LTO) announced on Wednesday that owners of new vehicles may have to create their own makeshift license plates.
This was due to an anticipated shortage of plates starting in June for motorcycles and July for motor vehicles.
LTO chief Jose Arturo Tugade revealed that the agency only has less than 3,000 blank plates for motor vehicles and 735,000 for motorcycles.
To address the expected shortage, the LTO is exploring contingency plans such as authorizing temporary plates made by vehicle owners themselves.
"So for example, motorcycle owners, in the absence of a plate number, they can create a plate number, and on the plate number, it will say the motor vehicle file number of the motorcycle," he said.
The plate numbers will be verified by LTO officials by matching their file numbers with those in the vehicle’s certificate of registration.
In addition, vehicle owners may need to carry paper driver’s licenses due to a dwindling supply of plastic cards.
However, Tugade acknowledged that allowing vehicle owners to create their own temporary plates may lead to an increase in crimes involving unmarked vehicles and a cumbersome process for the LTO to check the do-it-yourself plates.
"This is one of the reasons why we should really push for the procurement of these license plates as much as possible. We should exert all effort to avoid a situation wherein we would run out of license plates," said Tugade.
He attributed the possible shortage to the procurement process in the Department of Transportation (DOTr), which is in charge of purchasing license plates.
The DOTr issued a special order indicating that all procurement activities worth P50 million and above must be administered by the DOTr central office to avoid controversial deals, but Tugade requested the DOTr to fast-track and conclude the procurement of license plates to prevent a possible crisis.
