Ben Madilynn
THE Regional Highway Patrol Unit in Central Visayas (RHPU 7) will help the Land Transportation Office (LTO) catch motorists who use improvised or temporary plates in their vehicles.
Under LTO’s new memorandum circular VDM-2024-2721, motorists using improvised temporary plates will be apprehended starting September 1.
The new memorandum circular requires all vehicles with improvised plates that are waiting for replacements to obtain an authorization from LTO in order to continue using the temporary plates.
Under LTO’s joint administrative order (AO) 2014-01, violators will be fined at least P5,000.
Those vehicles purchased after January 2023 are covered by the AO.
Meanwhile, Police Lieutenant Colonel Wilbert Parilla, the head of RHPU 7, stated that in order to ensure uniformity in the implementation of the order, the LTO 7 would host a seminar on September 6 to update them about the AO’s guidelines before executing it.
The RHPU 7 has also been ordered by the Police Regional Office (PRO 7) to provide seminars for all Central Visayas police stations, providing them with information on the mechanics under AO 2014-01.
“So this one-week period is purely information dissemination. We will also share the information provided to us by LTO 7 to the motorists while conducting checkpoints,” Parilla said in mixed Cebuano and English.
Parilla said they will first issue warnings to drivers who use temporary plates, but once the order is fully implemented, they will already issue Temporary Operators Permits (TOP) to violators and confiscate their driver’s licenses. (AYB, TPT)
