With more than P37 billion in revenue losses over delinquent motor vehicle owners failing to register, the Land Transportation Office chief, Assistant Secretary Atty. Vigor D. Mendoza II, on Thursday, ordered the strict implementation of the "No Registration, No Travel" policy.

This was after a review of the data of the agency which disclosed that 65 percent of the motor vehicles in the country are classified as delinquent, or those whose owners either failed or deliberately refused to have their motor vehicles registered.

Delinquent motor vehicles refer to motor vehicles that were not registered on their due dates. Based on the LTO data, around 24.7 million of the 38.3 million vehicles in the country are classified as delinquent motor vehicles—which means that only around 13.3 million or 35 percent of the motor vehicles in the country are registered.

Translated into revenue losses in terms of registration payment and penalties, Mendoza said around P37.1 billion are to be collected from these delinquent motor vehicle owners.

"Yung included sa report na ito ng delinquent motor vehicles ay yung mga sasakyan na based sa aming record ay more than one year ng hindi nare-renew ang registration. Hindi pa kasama dito yung mga less than a year na hindi naka-renew ng registration," Mendoza explained.

The cut-off date of the LTO report is April 2022 or before the use of the Land Transportation Management System (LTMS) for motor vehicle registration.

The delinquent volumes were counted based on the outstanding delinquent registrations as of April 2022.

Mendoza explained that this is alarming data since based on their assessments, delinquent motor vehicles either have problems passing roadworthiness inspections that include emission testing, or do not have insurance coverage.

"In other words, these motor vehicles are threats to road safety. We have to be very strict in implementing the laws on land transportation not only to make it fair to the law-abiding motor vehicle owners but also for the welfare of the road users," said Mendoza.

"This is in line with the directive of our Department of Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista to exert more efforts in keeping our roads safe for all users," he added.

This is the reason, according to Mendoza, why he had already directed all LTO regional directors to come up with strategies and measures to strictly implement the "No Registration, No Travel" policy.

Delinquency data

Based on the LTO data, the National Capital Region has the highest number of delinquent motor vehicle owners with 4.1 million, followed by Region III with 3.3 million, and Region IV-A with 2.7 million.

In the Visayas, around 1.8 million delinquent motor vehicles were recorded in both Region VI and Region VII while Region VIII has around 758,000.

In Mindanao, Region XI has the highest number of delinquent motor vehicles with 1.2 million, followed closely by Region XII with 1.1 million. Both Region IX and Region X have almost one million each.

Citing the same data, Mendoza said most of the delinquent motor vehicles are motorcycles with 20.15 million, followed by four-wheel vehicles with 4.01 million, and trucks and buses with around 490,000.

Revenue losses

Mendoza earlier ordered a review of all the LTO data to further strengthen the revenue-generation measures of the agency to collect more money that would be used in the government services and other pro-poor programs of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Following the completion of the revenue, it was found out that there are around P37.1 billion collectibles from delinquent motor vehicle owners.

Of this figure, around P15.5 billion is the revenue loss from motorcycles, around P18.4 billion from four-wheel vehicles, and P3.25 billion from trucks and buses.

Further broken down, the national government will collect P12.36 billion in the registration of all delinquent motor vehicles.

Mendoza said there is a need to strictly implement the "No Registration, No Travel" policy since the number of delinquent motor vehicles would increase further if this is not immediately addressed.

"Kailangan nating maghigpit tungkol dito hindi lamang sa aspeto ng revenue losses sa gobyerno kung hindi dahil sa aspeto ng road safety dahil malamang karamihan sa mga delinquent motor vehicles na ito ay may road worthiness issues," said Mendoza.

"Hindi natin papayagan ito. May obligasyon ang bawat vehicle owners na i-rehistro ang kanilang mga sasakyan at ang tututukan natin ngayon ay ang strict compliance sa obligasyong ito," he stressed.