MANILA — The Land Transportation Office (LTO) said it would extend on Wednesday the validity of all driver's licenses that expired from June, as a legal battle prevented it from receiving plastic cards for the licenses.

Despite a shortage of plastic cards that forced the agency to issue paper-based driver's licenses since April, a Quezon City court last month issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the delivery of plastic license cards due to issues raised by a losing bidder.

"Today, we will issue a memo… Napapaloob dito na automatic extension na, hindi na kailangan tatakan [ang mga lisensya]," said LTO chairman Vigor Mendoza.

"We would inform everyone, the MMDA at other enforcers, na lahat ng mga lisensya na nag-expire starting June 2023 onwards are automatically extended for one year, until June of next year, or until yung aming card ay mailabas na natin," he told TeleRadyo Serbisyo.

(We will issue a memo on the automatic extension of licenses, which no longer need to be stamped. We would inform everyone, the MMDA, and other enforcers that the licenses that expired starting June 2023 onwards are automatically extended for one year, until June of next year, or until we can release our cards.)

The transportation department in June awarded the contract for the plastic cards to Banner Plastic Card Inc.

Banner submitted a bid of P219 million, higher than the P177-million bid of its competitor and petitioner AllCard Inc.

AllCard was disqualified due to alleged "delays" in another project involving the central bank and other agencies.

But a Quezon City court said that "deficiencies cited in the correspondences made by the concerned government agencies were merely taken at face value and never verified."

"Kung ili-lift na ng hukuman ang TRO, that would free up the cards. Pero kung hindi, maiipit talaga tayo," Mendoza noted.

"So in anticipation of the worst case scenario and our discussions with Congress, papalawigin ho natin nang isang taon [ang validity ng driver’s license]," he added.

(If the court lifts the TRO, that would free up the cards. Otherwise, we will have difficulties. So in anticipation of the worst case scenario and our discussions with Congress, we will extend the driver's license validity.)

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