By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent
LAND Transportation Office (LTO) director for northern Mindanao has ordered the strict implementation of a rule against the practice of stenciling engines of vehicles up for registration by unauthorized people or firms.
LTO director Hilarion Ulep has also designated an area at the LTO regional office in Bulua as stencil area.
Ulep said he was aware that a group of mostly “fixers” was unhappy with his order but he pointed out that he merely implemented a long-standing LTO policy.
He met with representatives of private emission test centers yesterday morning, and told them that they were not allowed to stencil vehicle engines.
The emission test centers, he said, were never given authority to stencil engines, and that only authorized LTO personnel can do this.
Ulep said stenciling vehicle engines is part of LTO’s work, and the entire registration process.
He said vehicle owners are not supposed to pay more for the engine stenciling service.
“The stencil is already included in the registration fee. Car owners don’t really have to pay anyone for the service,” said Ulep.
Ulep’s order is seen as part of the LTO move to get rid of “fixers” within the premises of the LTO in compliance with a directive.
The LTO regional office issued a memorandum to bar all known fixers from entering the LTO premises.
Ulep said that although fixing was already been banned by past LTO chiefs, the new memorandum was intended to complement the implementation of RA 9485, otherwise known as the Anti-Red Tape Act.
In a memorandum dated Jan. 12, 2016, new assistant Secretary Roberto Cabrera III, ordered all LTO offices nationwide to ban fixers from entering the LTO offices amid reports and complaints of the proliferation of fixers in the LTO premises around the country.
Ulep said that in compliance with the directive, the LTO regional office issued a memorandum to five provincial offices in northern Mindanao and to the various LTO satellite offices in Cagayan de Oro and the neighboring cities in the region.
“All employees and personnel are hereby reminded to wear at all times their office identification card,” Ulep wrote, adding that anybody who is caught violating this new memorandum would be “dealt with accordingly.” (with reports from pna)
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