Stricter car registration mulled over Bugatti mess

Automobile registration and renewal in the country might be made stricter soon depending on how the Land Transportation Office, or LTO, will recalibrate its policies to prevent anomalous car registrations in its system.

This after documents relating to an internal probe conducted by the LTO-National Capital Region confirmed that the two smuggled Bugatti Chiron sports cars, which created a buzz across social media, had indeed been registered with the LTO.

The controversial cars were registered under the old LTO system operated by Stradcom Corp., which has been asked to submit an audit trail report to determine the personnel involved in registering the two imported vehicles.

Notably, the LTO allowed the parallel operation of the old system despite the procurement of the Land Transportation Management System, or LTMS, in August 2019, which was supposed to upgrade and streamline vehicle registrations and related services.

“In light of the recent concerns and identified issues, this office strongly recommends a comprehensive review of the current vehicle registration policies and procedures, especially Administrative Order No. AVT-2014-023 dated 14 January 2014, and other procedures related to the registration and renewal of motor vehicles,” the LTO report recommended.

The report pointed out that the recent uncovering of the anomalous registration of the smuggled luxury vehicles raised the need for a comprehensive review of the LTO’s registration process.

Based on the vehicles’ registration papers, the import duties paid for each imported Bugatti Chiron was over P24.787 million as detailed in their Certificate of Payment, or CP, issued to Frebel Import and Export Corp. by the Bureau of Customs.

The CP is a requisite documentary submission for the registration of imported vehicles with the LTO. The BoC issues the CP.