Amid the shortage of vehicle license plates, the Department of Transportation and the Land Transportation Office are taking matters into their own hands. They acquired plate making machines to boost the capacity of the government to manufacture car plates on its own.
In an inspection at the LTO Motor Vehicle License Plate Facility last Friday, April 6, 2018, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade personally inspected the seven (7) units of Manual Embossing Machines which were delivered on Feb. 26, 2018.
The plate making machines were part of the contract of Trojan Computer Forms Manufacturing Corp. and JH. Tonnjes E.A.S.T. GmbH Joint Venture, who won the contract for the procurement of Motor Vehicle and Motorcyle license plates to address the backlog from July 2016 and beyond. The contract stipulated only five manual plate making machines, but the contractor added two more for temporary use at no additional cost.
One unit of Automated Embossing Machine will also be delivered in July, and will be made operational in August 2018.
“Ayaw na nating maulit ’yung problema sa plaka. Kaya naman mas maigi kung tayo na lang mismo ang mag-manufacture kaysa nagpapagawa pa abroad na nagpapatagal lang ng proseso. With the proper equipment and training, kaya naman natin,” said Tugade. [We don’t want a repeat of the problem. So it’s better that we on our own produce the plates rather than have them made from abroad that only prolongs the process].
At full production, the seven units of manual embossing machines are capable of producing 22,000 plates per day. The machines have already been calibrated and are already operational. Meanwhile, the automated embossing machine can produce 12,000 plates per day.
Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board Chairman Martin Delgra III, LTO Executive Director Romeo Vera Cruz, and other road sector officials of the DOTr were also present during the inspection.
