MANILA (UPDATED) - The Land Transportation Office (LTO) and Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) may not release some 700,000 license plates that were donated by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to the LTO and DOTC after the plates' supplier-importer failed to pay the required Customs duties.

The Supreme Court (SC), in its en banc session on Tuesday, issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) preventing the LTO and DOTC "from releasing and/or distributing, or disposing in any matter of the 300,000 license plates for motor vehicles and 400,000 license plates for motorcycles." The TRO also covers all other plates which may be subsequently turned over by the BOC to the LTO under the LTO Motor Vehicle License Plate Standardization Program (LTO-MVLPSP).

The plates were turned over by the BOC last April 15 as a measure to have the plates distributed after its supplier, Power Plates Development Concepts Incorporated and Dutch firm J. Knierem B.V. Goes, failed to pay some P40-million in Customs duties. This does not include the storage and wharfage fees.

The halt order was granted to petitioners Representative Jonathan Dela Cruz (Abakada party-list) and Representative Gustavo Tambunting (Parañaque 2nd District) who contended that the Commission on Audit (COA) had issued a Notice of Disallowance, dated July 13, 2015, in connection with the LTO-MVLPSP, which required the return to the Bureau of the Treasury the P477,901,329 advance payment made by the LTO to the joint venture.

The total project cost is P3.8-billion, which was bagged by the joint venture in 2013.

Petitioners insisted that the plates cannot be donated or transferred by the finance department and BOC to the LTO because of the Notice of Disallowance.

The shipment, which arrived and was held at the Manila International Container Port (MICP) for about a year, was declared as "abandoned."

The plates were donated to the LTO after the BOC secured the finance department's approval and with the BOC's denial, last March 30, of the joint venture's appeal to have the shipment's "abandoned" status lifted.