The Land Transportation Office has reset to Dec. 31 the start of its drive against the use of temporary or improvised vehicle license plates.
Instead of the Sept. 1, the prohibition will start on Dec. 31, LTO chief Vigor Mendoza II said.
He said there would be no excuse for motor vehicle owners who already have the license plates not to install them in their vehicles.
“We ask the motorists to claim and install their respective license plates as soon as they are available either in the car dealerships and replacement plates in our offices,” he said.
The agency previously issued a memorandum circular against the use of improvised and temporary plates after an initial investigation showed that registered owners of vehicles, especially the newly bought ones, are not claiming their license plates from the motor vehicle dealers.
Thousands of license plates remained unclaimed in various motor vehicle dealerships, he said.
Mendoza recalled that during a meeting last July, the car dealers asserted that their clients did not claim the plates despite repeated reminders.
The installation of license plates is crime deterrent, too, the LTO chief said.
“There is no more backlog in (license plates for) four-wheel vehicles, so there is no reason for vehicle owners not to claim and install them in their vehicles,” he said.
“The only remaining backlog is the license plates on motorcycles, and that this is our focus now in compliance with the directive from President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to address all the backlogs on license plates by June next year,” he added.
He clarified that the deadline extension would not diminish the agency’s effort to aggressively come up with measures to deliver all the unclaimed license plates to the rightful owners.
He said he has already instructed the regional directors and district office heads to coordinate with the local government units for the distribution of the license plates.
