MANILA - Officials of the Land Transportation Office and the legal team of the agency's IT systems provider, Dermalog, met Wednesday to discuss ways to improve the agency's services.

The meeting was held after Dermalog took issue with the remarks of LTO chief Teofilo Guadiz III last weekend that the agency would be looking for other IT systems providers or revert to the previous one as some motorists had to wait long to secure a driver’s license and renew their vehicle registration.

"Nagkaroon ng paradigm shift ang LTO. Kumuha sila ng painibagong service provider. We were hopeful na this would be the solution to LTO. Ang nangyari po, hindi sila naging solusyon. Mas naging problema po," Guadiz had said in a press conference.

"Humaba ang proseso, Napahirap po ang proseso… So I am inviting other IT providers to provide a solution, ibalik yung dating serbisyo," he added.

Dermalog, a Germany-based technology provider, bagged the Land Transportation Management Systems (LTMS) project in 2018 as the Duterte administration promised to turn most of LTO's transactions online to avoid "fixers".

• LTO says driver's license renewal to go online soon

The LTMS is considered a cornerstone of the LTO’s five-year IT modernization program to make the agency more efficient and give its clients all the convenience of online service.

LTO clients are supposed to create their accounts at the LTO portal to avail themselves of services, including making an appointment with the agency.

But according to Dermalog spokesperson Atty. Nikki de Vega, there were some resistance from certain camps when they were already executing their role as the LTO's IT systems provider.

The LTO allegedly refused to upload data on the server. Some regional directors also supposedly do not make use of the LTO portal. And, StradComm, the previous IT service provider, allegedly handed only partial and inaccurate data entries.

“The motor vehicle registration, sa'min binigay ang renewal. Ang new registration, andun sa dati, which violates the terms of the contract. They should not be there! We were shocked na n'un naglabas ng memo si LTO chief Guadiz, gusto niya yung medical clinics mag-upload ng data sa dating provider… Unfortunately, hindi tinurn over sa'min yung data. Partial lang kung meron mang tinurn over. Maraming mali. Maraming missing entries. So yung mga challenges ng Dermalog, hindi accurate ang entries,” De Vega said.

“Yung Motor Vehicle Registration System, dapat sa bahay mo lang ginagawa 'yan, sa LTO portal. For reasons unknown to us, ayaw i-upload ni LTO sa LTO portal. Ilang beses kami nag-follow up sa kanila, paki-upload na lang,” she added.

Reacting to Guadiz' supposed warning to replace Dermalog with another provider, De Vega said, "Magmalasakit naman kayo sa taumbayan. Bigyan niyo ng modernong sistema."

"Kaya nagtataka kami sa pronouncement noong Firday na gusto niyang bumalik sa lumang sistema. So sabi ko, parang naka-cellphone ka, tinanggalan ka. Binigyan ka ng landline."

"Sana, he will work with us to make sure na modernized ang LTO," said De Vega said.

In a statement on Tuesday, Guadiz said there is no intention to replace Dermalog.

"It was never the intention of Land Transportation Office to replace Dermalog as its IT systems provider because doing so at this time will produce more problems instead of solutions," he said.

"We believe that the best course of action at this point is to sit down with Dermalog and its officials, IT personnel, and other concerned stakeholders, and discuss with the LTO their own concerns," he added.

"Our hope is that doing so, issues and other concerns can be ironed out and avoid or hopefully eliminate problems and other challenges that may arise in the delivery of public service."

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