New car and motorcycle owners will have to DIY their license plates amid looming shortage

After announcing a shortage of plastic cards to print driver’s licenses, the Land Transportation Office (LTO) has now confirmed that license plates for motorcycles and cars may run out by June and July, respectively.

LTO chief Jay Art Tugade said that the agency had fewer than 3,000 blank plates remaining for vehicles and 735,000 blank plates for motorcycles.

In an interview with ANC Headstart, Tugade explained that the Department of Transportation is aware of the looming shortage.

The procurement of the license plates will reach PHP4.5 billion (US$81.19 million), but the transportation department ruled that any procurement activities of PHP50 million (US$902,605) or above will have to go through the central office.

Tugade added that the LTO is working on a measure that will allow motorists to produce their own temporary plates.

“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.

When asked whether this could potentially increase the incidents of crime, Tugade answered, “You know what, that is precisely the reason for having plate numbers. I agree with you, that could be a possibility. However, we do need to be able to identify motor vehicles and that is one way for us to identify motor vehicles.”