No government office or bureau can effect structural reform on its sole authority — until and unless it has addressed basic backlogs on its institutional turf. For example, how well has the Land Transportation Office issued replacement license plates and made available stickers for land vehicle registration renewals? Such backlogs of unimaginable proportions must backfire on its ongoing “no registration, no travel” campaign.

Revisiting Executive Order 125 (signed 30 January 1987), EO 125a (13 April 1987), and EO 226 (25 July 1987), the LTO is tasked with registering motor vehicles, issuing driver’s/conductor’s licenses and permits, enforcing transportation laws, rules and regulations, and adjudicating apprehension cases.

Strangely, the referenced EOs betray the existence of a creature called “LTO” literally and nominally.

But yes, EO 125 created the Bureau of Land Transportation, of three other bureaus, in the reorganization of the then Ministry of Transportation and Communications and defined its powers and functions. Whereas, EO 125a simply abolished the Land Transportation Commission, with its staff functions transferred to the service offices of the department proper.

In particular, EO 226 provided the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Land Transportation two service units, namely: 1) Law Enforcement Service, 2) Traffic Adjudication Service, outlining the powers and functions appurtenant to the latter.

In a careful reading of the BLT’s functions, no clear mention is made of “private motor vehicles”; at best it is even mute about it. Throughout Section 13’s “a to h” enumerated functions, the solitary reference is to “public land services,” or invariably, “public and land transportation utilities/facilities and services such as motor vehicles, tri-mobiles, and railroad lines.”

In 2022 alone, some 1.27-million private cars were registered in the Philippines — the number gradually increasing year-on-year since 2020. One can readily understand why the LTO has just launched an aggressive drive against unregistered land motor vehicles rather than completing the issuance of replacement car plates and printing sufficient stickers for renewing registrants.

Interestingly, whatever laws govern the mandate of the BLT are deemed already dated and historically “disconnected’ to contemporary times. The laws came on the heels of a 1987 Constitution with extreme ideological bias for social and economic rights and welfare. The 1987 Constitution, scholars say, fits the post-liberal paradigm of “transformative” constitutional texts that emerged during the democratic transitions in the 1980s and 1990s.

We are now in the roaring ‘20s and a lot has changed since then. The “no registration, no travel” policy launched last month prompted 272,233 delinquent motor vehicle owners to renew their expired registrations from 1 to 31 January. Yet, this was just 1 percent of the 24.7-million delinquent vehicles whose owners failed or deliberately refused to have their motor vehicles registered for more than a year.

But what caused such an unimaginable backlog that frustrated the LTO’s revenue stream?

As of October 2021, some 42,600 public utility jeepneys were operating in the Philippines. In addition, about 25,500 transport network vehicle services and 21,700 taxis were operating nationwide.

The LTO’s avowed “promotion of safety and comfort in land travel as its continuing commitment” is empty rhetoric in the face of a P10,000 fine or impounding of vehicles that it threatens road users with in breach of its “ningas kugon” campaign.

The LTO is on attack mode in a campaign it cannot even justifiably implement — the number of unregistered vehicles could reach 24.7 million. Some 65 percent of all motor vehicles in the Philippines are unregistered, hence its “devil may care” crackdown.

Data as crazy as that must scream of what Samuel Huntington fondly refers to as “institutional decay.” If a high fine of P10,000 isn’t extortionist, what is? If confiscation of unregistered land transport units isn’t violative of private property, what is? Nothing can alter the fact that the office has become inutile over time.

If the LTO automated to streamline its increasing transactions, it must have been the wrong program altogether. First, it hardly has the comprehensive database for what it’s crunching — a far cry from Australia’s “transport research economics.”