Land Transportation Office (LTO) chief Vigor Mendoza II on Monday welcomed the decision of the Court of Appeals (CA), giving the government the green light to proceed with the delivery of over three million plastic cards for driver’s licenses.
Mendoza said the backlog of the physical cards could now be addressed as early as the second half of 2024. The backlog for plastic cards is over 4.1 million before the end of March.
The LTO chief described the appellate court’s lifting of the writ of preliminary injunction against the plastic card delivery as a “victory for the Filipino people.”
CA junked the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 215’s injunction to stop the winning bidder—Banner Plasticard, Inc.—from delivering the cards to the LTO and Department of Transportation.
AllCard, Inc., the losing bidder, filed the injunction petition with the lower court.
At least one million plastic cards had already been delivered to the LTO office yesterday afternoon, Mendoza said following the CA order.
“We admire and respect the wisdom of the justices of the Court of Appeals in their decision to lift the writ of preliminary injunction,” the LTO chief said.
“Even before, we have been arguing that public interest must always prevail over business interest and in this case, the CA clearly saw the soundness and validity of the arguments we presented through the Office of the Solicitor General,” Mendoza added.
The appellate court, in its ruling, asserted the Quezon City court should have not entertained AllCard’s petition due to the petitioner’s non-compliance with the administrative process before seeking court intervention.
The losing bidder should have appealed its disqualification before the Department of Transportation’s (DOTr) bids and awards committee, and not by filing a petition with a court, it maintained.
Mendoza tasked LTO officials to coordinate with Banner Plastics Card, Inc. for the immediate delivery of the plastic cards. The agency would come up with a new schedule of release of plastic card-printed driver’s licenses “at the soonest possible time,” he promised.