The Land Transportation Office is urging local governments to temporarily suspend the no-contact apprehension policy (NCAP), calling for its review to clarify the guidelines of the traffic policy.
LTO chief Teofilo Guadiz III issued the appeal after the agency received complaints from public utility vehicle operators about being charged fines for the traffic violations of their drivers.
Under the law, the registered owner of a vehicle must pay for the traffic violation committed using his or her vehicle by command responsibility and on the presumption that they are also the drivers.
“We are now studying this. It seeks there is a gap in the policy that needs a review so that the driver himself should be held liable,” Guadiz said.
He urged local government units that drafted the NCAP guidelines to coordinate first with the LTO to finetune the provisions.
While the LTO is the one that sends the alarm for traffic violations, it is the local government, together with the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, that implements the NCAP.
At the House of Representatives, Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers sought a congressional inquiry into the alleged malpractice in the implementation of the NCAP.
Barbers said he received reports and complaints from motorists, particularly motorbike drivers engaged in delivery services, who were penalized with enormous fees “without due process of law.”
Barbers said while the intent of NCAP is to discipline erring drivers, the public should be enlightened about the details of its implementation to curb or stop abuses.
Under the NCAP system, non-payment of dues or fines within seven days mean that violators’ vehicles won’t be accommodated for re-registration.
“This NCAP system is laudable since the intent is to discipline erring, abusive or wayward drivers. But the implementers, I was told, are imposing excessive fines and could be violating the Constitution since there is no due process of law. Likewise, there is no law, ordinance or regulation prohibiting vehicle registration due to non-payment of fines for traffic violations,” Barbers said.
Meanwhile, Bagong Henerasyon party-list Rep. Bernadette Herrera called for a congressional inquiry into the “legality and soundness” of the LTO’s plan to revert to its previous Information Technology (IT) provider.
“During my consultations with key stakeholders, they were very appreciative of the fact that the current IT provider of the LTO no longer charges interconnectivity fees for motor vehicle registration, driver’s license transactions, and law enforcement and traffic adjudication service transactions, unlike before,” Herrera said.
“The LTO is claiming that the current system has glitches, but there are reports from the field which indicate that these glitches are actually due to human interventions and manual overrides done by agency personnel,” she added.
Herrera said since 2018, the LTO’s IT systems provider has been Dermalog Identification Systems, a German company with a 27-year track record in biometrics and data security, with operations in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and India. Dermalog replaced Stradcom Corporation.
In a recent media interview, Guadiz said that for him, “the old IT system provides a better solution,” and that “Stradcom is welcome (to bid for their old contract).”
“An agency head that threatens to terminate a contract, and then publicly commends a possible bidder, may be considered a case of impropriety—but let’s give Asec. Guadiz the benefit of the doubt. Before anything else, however, we must examine if the commitments to Dermalog are being honored, and if that is the reason why their operations have encountered problems,” Herrera said.