By Rey Panaligan
The Supreme Court (SC) lifted yesterday its 2016 restraining order and allowed the Land Transportation Office (LTO) to release more than 700,000 license plates of motorcycles and motor vehicles in the country.
In a full-court resolution, the SC declared as constitutional the use of the appropriation under the Motor Vehicle Registration and Driver’s Licensing Regulatory Services in the 2014 national budget for the implementation of the Motor Vehicle License Plate Standardization Program (MVLPSP).
With the ruling the SC lifted its June 14, 2016 temporary restraining order (TRO) given on the petition filed by Reps. Jonathan dela Cruz and Gustavo Tambunting.
In their petition, Dela Cruz and Tambunting claimed that the Commission on Audit (CoA) had issued a Notice of Disallowance on July 13, 2015, in connection with the LTO-MVLPSP, which required the return to the Bureau of the Treasury the R477,901,329 advance payment made by the LTO to the joint venture.
The MVLPSP was awarded to the joint venture of Netherlands-based J.Knieiriem B.V. Goes and local company Power Plates Development Concept with the contract signed on Feb. 21, 2014.
The program was for the period July 2013 to June 2018 with a budget of P3.8 billion for the procurement of license plates for 5,236,439 motor vehicles and 9,968,017 for motorcycles nationwide.
The LTO said the project involved adding safety features to license plates, such as tamper-resistant locks and bolts and reflectorized sheeting.
