LTO wary on disinformation campaigns

LTO wary on disinformation campaigns | Daily Tribune

The Land Transportation Office (LTO) is seeking stronger cooperation with the Philippine National Police (PNP) to combat what it calls a growing number of disinformation campaigns.

LTO chief assistant Secretary Vigor D. Mendoza II said the agency’s social media monitoring team has seen a rise in misinformation and disinformation while tracking viral photos and videos of traffic violators.

“Many people are spreading false information, and sadly, they are deceiving many of our fellow citizens,” Mendoza said in a statement. “The wrong information is being disseminated in the form of news or breaking news, and this could be the reason why a lot of our netizen kababayans are falling for these misinformation and disinformation campaigns. We have to fight this.”

The LTO’s call for cooperation comes as police intensify efforts against what they call “fake news peddlers,” which have already led to charges being filed against several vloggers.

Mendoza cited a recent TikTok video that falsely claimed the Online Drivers Licensing System was down and that at least four courier services had been suspended. He said the system remains operational and there is no truth to the supposed suspension of courier services.

“We see that the motive is purely to discredit, intending to make people angry at the government at the expense of the LTO,” Mendoza said.

The LTO also announced it has hired 20 more personnel to speed up the distribution of license plates. The agency said the new hires bring the total number of people handling plate releases to 52.

Mendoza said the additional manpower is expected to increase the number of plates released daily from 8,000 to 10,000 to 13,000 to 15,000.

“We already accomplished the gargantuan task of ending the 11-year license backlog involving millions of motorcycle plates,” Mendoza said. “Our focus now is to distribute all of these in the soonest possible time in compliance with the instruction of the president.”

On Wednesday, LTO-NCR director Roque Verzosa III led a Plate Distribution Caravan at Robinson’s Galleria in Ortigas. Another caravan was held at SM City Manila the following day. LTO regional directors and district office heads across the country have also launched their own distribution projects.