FIVE House leaders are urging the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to defer and review the opening of more private motor vehicle inspection centers (PMVICs), which are supposed to replace existing emission testing facilities.
Majority Leader and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez, Deputy Speaker Rodante Marcoleta, Deputy Majority Leader Juan Miguel Arroyo, Assistant Majority Leader Precious Hipolito Castelo, and Tingog party-list Rep. Yedda Marie Romualdez, who chairs the committee on welfare of children, made the appeal in House Resolution (HR) No. 1408.
In their resolution, the five House leaders said the Land Transportation Office (LTO) has identified 209 additional sites to the original sites of 138 for PMVICs .
It has to be noted that the original sites of 138 have already been approved and eight out of this initial numbers have already been given the Authorization Certificate to Operate (ACTO). Thirteen sites are still awaiting their ACTO and six sites ready for inspection. These numbers will show that the first batch of 138 centers/sites are still not fully and completely operational.
The House leaders said while the LTO has allowed these PMVICs to serve the public, its district offices are still accepting certificates of emission compliance (CECs) issued by private emission testing centers (PETCs).
“The presence of PETCs and the continued acceptance of CECs as a requirement for the registration of motor vehicles create unfair competition to the prejudice of PMVICs authorized by the LTO and those that are still under construction and working towards securing their authority to operate,” the five House leaders stressed.
They pointed out that the motor vehicle inspection centers took two years to comply with LTO requirements and go through the vetting and authorization process.
“The addition of more sites will unnecessarily burden the LTO as these will go through the same tedious process that will stretch out the agency’s manpower amid the Covid-19 pandemic,” they said.
They said the DOTr and the LTO should defer the acceptance of more applicants “until all the initially qualified PMVICs are given authority to operate and until further studies are presented supporting the necessity of having additional centers and its impact on investors.”
In the meantime, they said the LTO should stop accepting emission test certificates from PETCs and “instead require motor vehicle owners to undergo inspection by PMVICs.”
“It must be emphasized that these PMVICs took up the project to help the government in serving the public more efficiently,” they added.
