Misbegotten project

Do you really think that  with new license plates, your vehicle will be less vulnerable to carjacking?

That's the argument advanced by the bright boys at the Land Transportation  Office, an agency under the Department of Transportation and Communications, to justify their P3.8 billion project to require all brand-new as well as old motor vehicles to have new license plates at P450 each.

It's arrant nonsense. This LTO ruling is nothing more than a money making-scheme of the agency.

In other words, a form of highway robbery hatched by some people in the agency so they can laugh all the way to the bank. 

That much is what Sen. Ralph Recto thinks of the new license plate requirement, and he may be right on the money.

At a recent hearing of the Blue Ribbon subcommittee, Recto called on the  LTO to explain how it was able to bid out a billion-peso project when the 2013 budget only allotted P180 million for it.

The senator also wants the LTO to immediately stop the ongoing replacement of all motor vehicles license plates amid questions raised on the rationale of such policy and persistent complaints from the motoring public.

His recommendation: those who already paid for a new set of plates should be reimbursed the amount until such time that the LTO can show the Senate and the motoring public that something good can come out of it.

The LTO should come up with a better reason than foisting the canard that new license plates will strike the fear of God and of the law in carjackers. -end-

Image by philstar.com