MANILA — Sen. Grace Poe on Friday called on the Land Transportation Office (LTO) to thoroughly assess its digitalization program, which she described as "chaotic."
"Years in implementation and billions of money spent later, the Land Transportation Office's digitalization initiative leaves much to be desired," Poe said.
Poe, chairperson of the Senate public services committee, said the LTO has been plagued with the same old problems along with new ones like the shortage of plastic license cards.
"These show the agency's digitalization plan is chaotic. Kumbaga sa computer software, nasa beta phase pa rin. Puro testing, hindi na umusad sa final implementation," she said.
"Hindi pwedeng kapag nagkaubusan ng plastic license cards, papel muna ang driver's license. O kaya naman dahil ubos na ang plaka para sa motor, do-it-yourself na plaka muna ang gamitin," Poe added.
The Department of Transportation on Thursday said there were only 70,000 available driver’s license cards for distribution, against the nearly 700,000 backlog for the said material.
Former LTO chief Jay Art Tugade earlier insisted that the DOTr’s January 2023 memorandum prevented his office from procuring plastic cards. But Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista had said the LTO should have taken care of the procurement process as soon as it spotted the need.
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