LTO fights its mother-department

The Land Transportation Office tried to put blame on the Department of Transportation for the shortage of plastic cards to be used for printing of drivers’ license.

LTO put on quite a convincing show at a press conference they called – blaming a Special Order (SO) from DOTr that mandates procurement above P50-M should be handled by DOTr central Bids and Awards Committee (BAC).

All sector agencies complied with the SO (issued Jan. 25, 2023), except LTO.

They appealed for DOTr to exempt them from the SO and be allowed to initiate procurement process for the license cards.

Request denied.

LTO had all the opportunity to procure the cards – more than five months – long before the SO was issued.

When DOTr’s central BAC started the procurement process in January 2023, they asked LTO for the Terms of Reference. This would provide the technical description of the cards to be given to bidders.

But LTO delayed submitting the TOR even after repeated requests by BAC.

The TOR was given March when cards were getting depleted.

When BAC held a pre-bid conference where the TOR was given to bidders, the suppliers said the TOR was skewed to favor just one bidder. They called the TOR defective. The procurement bidding was postponed until the TOR was accepted by all bidders.

In short, LTO submitted a TOR that favored just one bidder. They created an artificial shortage so they can call for an emergency procurement from a favored supplier.

But since the LTO heads were lawyers, they knew the loopholes of the rules and regulations.

Somehow the plan backfired. When DOTr explained the timeline – saying LTO should have planned ahead before the shortage happened – the public’s rant on paper licenses were directed at LTO, not DOTr.

Even Senator Grace Poe blamed the inefficiencies at LTO, showing the inexperience of the LTO heads to anticipate the shortage.

No one has named the favored supplier, who they say happens to be the same supplier of LTO during the time of the previous DOTr secretary. Wait – the LTO head is the son of that former DOTr secretary. Is that a coincidence?

The current DOTr secretary reasoned he issued the SO for ‘good governance’ purposes. That’s euphemism for cleaning the department of corrupt practices.

The transport secretary has been facing head-on the well-entrenched practices of many agencies to make money out of public service.

When the status quo gets rattled, those agency-heads who happen to be lawyers toss the corruption blame on the Secretary. They were hoping – if you can’t stop them, join them.

But the secretary is not rattled. He refuses to answer the potshots. He will not even engage in an image-enhancing propaganda to prop up his reputation.

They simply cannot put a good man down.