LTO coordinates with Viber to restore overworked hotline

The Land Transportation Office (LTO) announced Saturday that it has started coordinating with Viber Philippines in order to restore its access to the AksyOn the Spot hotline number which the agency had tapped to expedite the processing of the printing of plastic-printed driver’s licenses.

LTO chief, Assistant Secretary Atty. Vigor D. Mendoza II said the agency’s IT personnel lost the access of the AksyOn the Spot hotline (0929-292-0865) after it was flooded with inquiries and requests to print drivers' licenses.

As of Thursday, 18 July, the number of requests and inquiries had passed 9,000. The LTO tapped the hotline over the weekend as a platform for the five percent of motorists haven't received their licenses.

“On behalf of the LTO, I sincerely apologize for this incident. Rest assured that we will continuously work on this to restore our access and eventually facilitate the printing of a plastic driver’s license of our kababayan,” Mendoza said.

Mendoza said that some of the requests had already been processed and that these drivers needed to confirm whether they would be picking the licenses up at LTO's Central Office in Quezon City, or whether they would be availing of LTO's accredited courier service.

LTO had set up this hotline to expedite license printing after a directive from Department of Transportation Secretary Jaime J. Bautista and an order from President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.

The hotline allowed motorists to send photographs or scanned copies of the temporary, paper-printed licenses to the hotline's Viber account..

“Tapos na po ang backlog sa plastic driver’s license kaya wala na dapat na mga motorista na gumagamit ng papel na lisensya. Kaya on the part of the LTO, patuloy tayong gumagawa ng paraan upang mapabilis ang serbisyo natin sa ating mga kliyente, sa ating mga kababayan,” Mendoza said.

“We assure all our clients that all the efforts are now being done to restore our access to the Viber platform of our hotline so that we can process all the requests for plastic driver’s license in the soonest possible time,” he added.