Land Transportation Office Chief Assistant Secretary Atty. Vigor D. Mendoza II has expressed gratitude to the Anti-Red Tape Authority over the weekend for recognizing its efforts to improve further the ease of doing business with the agency.
While transaction-related complaints were high last year, ARTA Director General Ernesto Perez said in a news report that there has been substantial improvement in the efforts to run after fixers and other corruption-related campaigns in the agency.
“The first step in problem-solving is to identify and acknowledge that there are problems. This is why I made it a point to expedite the full digitalization efforts in the LTO and initiated moves to partner with other law enforcement agencies in weeding out fixers and their cohorts in our ranks,” Mendoza said.
He said the full digitalization efforts, which is also the marching order of both President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. and Department of Transportation Secretary Jaime J. Bautista not only focus on facilitating a fast and comfortable transaction in the LTO but also ensure lesser human interventions in all transactions.
“Less human interventions mean almost zero to zero opportunity for corruption activities. Right now, we are at 97 percent usage of the new IT system and we are now working to address the remaining 3 percent which would pave the way to 100 percent full digitalization efforts,” he said.
The remaining 3 percent, according to Mendoza, are the transactions that cannot still be processed under the new system, the Land Transportation Management System, or LTMS, because of internet connectivity issues especially in the provinces.
The LTMS is an internet-based IT service of the LTO.
Recently, the LTO also busted a syndicate operating in LTO by stealing license plates. Three LTO personnel were arrested and they were already charged together with their other cohorts.
Only a few weeks after he assumed his post in July last year, Assec Mendoza already initiated a strong partnership with the Philippine National Police on two fronts of fixing—fixers that are hanging around the LTO offices and fixers who advertise their illegal activities on social media.
The LTO also started coordination with the management of Facebook Philippines in taking down accounts that advertise fixing activities.
“Maraming pang dapat gawin but I assure our kababayan that I am monitoring the progress on a daily basis. Fast, comfortable and glitch-free transactions in the LTO has always been our goal and in a matter of time, I am confident that the LTO, through its hard-working and committed personnel, will be able to deliver,” Mendoza said.
