The new measures taken by the Land Transportation Office to make sure medical certificates of driver’s license applicants are genuine will promote road safety, a congressman has said.
House Deputy Minority Leader and AANGAT Tayo Party-list Rep. Neil Abayon said too many people resort to shortcuts including fake or tampered documents “when they transact business with government and private offices.”
“LTO is right in putting in place the new measures and procedures. Clinics, physicians, and hospitals that issue medical certificates have legal obligations to the public and in this situation, to the LTO as the agency of the State that issues driver’s licenses,” said Abayon, a member of the House Committee on Transportation.
Abayon added that the LTO’s crackdown will go a long way in removing medically unfit drivers from the roads.
He noted that “there is a widespread underground industry engaged in the production of fake certificates, identification cards, diplomas, transcripts of records, baptismal records, birth certificates, medical test results, and various other documents. It has become a culture of utter disregard of basic decency and laws of the land.”
“Many other government agencies are faced with the same problem of fake documents. Congress passed the National Identification System Law as one way to address this matter.”
Abayon suggested the creation of a centralized and most secure database or network of databases through which all documents for transactions with government offices shall be submitted, processed and stored.
The Department of Information and Communication Technology, the National Privacy Commission, the Philippine Statistics Authority, and other agencies responsible for data “must take on this long-term challenge requiring hefty capital, technology, and manpower resources.”
