LTO moves deadline for new plates

INSTEAD of the Sept. 1 deadline, the prohibition on the use of improvised and temporary plates for motor vehicle owners will start on Dec. 31, 2024.

The extension was issued by the Land Transportation Office (LTO) after it received information during a meeting with car dealers last August that thousands of license plates remain unclaimed in various motor vehicle dealerships.

According to the car dealers, their clients were unable to claim the plates despite being repeatedly notified of the availability of their respective license plates.

Assistant Secretary Vigor Mendoza II said that the LTO no longer had any backlog for license plates for four-wheeled vehicles, «so there is no reason for these vehicle owners not to claim and set them in place on their vehicles.

»The only remaining backlog is license plates on motorcycles and this is our focus now in compliance with the directive from President Marcos to address all the backlog on license plates by June next year," he said.

Mendoza, however, emphasized that the deadline extension would not diminish their effort to aggressively come up with measures to deliver all the unclaimed license plates to the rightful owners.

He said he already instructed LTO regional directors and District Office heads to coordinate with the local government units for the distribution of the license plates.