THE National Public Transport Coalition (NPTC) is appealing to the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee to heed the call of Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III to probe the issues about the Land Transportation Office’s information technology (IT) program.
Ariel Lim, NPTC president, called on Senator Francis Tolentino to start a committee investigation based on the resolution filed by Pimentel last August 2022 on the supposed irregularities involving the LTO’s Road Transportation IT Infrastructure Project.
Senator Imee Marcos filed Senate Resolution No. 348 on Dec. 5, 2022, directing the appropriate Senate committee to conduct a legislative inquiry into the alleged corruption involving the project.
According to Lim, the NPTC has already asked the Senate and the House of Representatives to conduct an investigation on the matter.
“Actually, the request has long been pending at the Senate and in Congress to investigate. The glitch at the LTO started in the renewal of registration last year. Palpak po ang program na ‘yan ng Dermalog, Land Transportation Management System portal, kaya tumagal nang almost three years,” he lamented.
“The program of Dermalog on LTO’s Land Transportation Management System is a failure. The government has been put at a disadvantage because it has already paid the contactor, but the program itself is not yet finished,” he said.
Pimentel filed Senate Resolution No. 147 urging the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee to investigate the undue payment of LTO of P3.19 billion for the Road IT Infrastructure Project under the joint venture with Dermalog Identification System, Holy Family Printing Corp., and Microgenesis and Verzontal Builders.
He said General Clause 10 of the General Conditions of the Contract of the Standard Philippine Bidding Documents states that “payments shall be made only upon a certification by the Head of the Procuring Entity to the effect that the Goods have been rendered or delivered in accordance with the terms of this Contract and have been duly inspected and accepted.”
A 2021 Consolidated Annual Audit Report of the Commission on Audit for the Department of Transportation showed it called the attention of the LTO “for the undue payment to the foreign information technology contractor Dermalog despite incomplete turnover for the P3.19 billion Road IT Infrastructure project.”
The senator cited various “unresolved issues” that disrupted the operations of several LTO sites, including “the slow processing of documents in getting a driver’s license and its renewal, as well as registration of vehicles” which have been attributed to the agency’s new IT system.