Thursday, October 05, 2006 Citom asks LTO to suspend licenses of 579 erring drivers
THE Cebu City Traffic Operations Management (Citom) board requested the Land Transportation Office (LTO) 7 to either suspend or revoke the licenses of 579 drivers who committed at least three violations within any given 12-month period.
Citom wants to discipline the drivers but only LTO can confiscate licenses, as mandated under Republic Act 4136, or the Land Transportation and Traffic Code.
LTO 7 officer-in-charge Vicente Gador Jr. said, though, that Citom’s request did not mention particular provisions of traffic laws that the drivers violated.
Gador said there is a need to determine whether the assessment of the violations is not in conflict with RA 4136.
Citom enforcers, unless deputized by LTO, are not supposed to apprehend drivers for violating national laws stipulated under RA 4136.
But the Cebu City Government has included in its traffic management ordinance violations that are under the enforcing power of LTO, hence the conflict with RA 4136 provisions.
And if the violations fall under the category of disregarding traffic signs, which local government units are empowered under the Local Government Code, then LTO cannot also suspend the drivers.
He likewise said that only those charged and fined before LTO, using the forms specified under Section 29 of RA 4136, can be penalized with suspension or revocation of license.
LTO has its own record of drivers’ violations.
12-month period
And because database is centralized and can be accessed online by different LTO licensing centers, the office can determine whether a driver has committed three violations within a 12-month period.
“To instill discipline among drivers and to deter them from committing traffic violations, it is very crucial that appropriate actions to be taken against those drives,” the Citom board told LTO.
Section 2, Article XIII of Memorandum Circular 89-1005 (implementing guidelines of RA 4126) states that licenses of drivers with at least three traffic violations within a 12-month period “may be suspended for a period not exceeding two years or totally revoked.”
“The suspension or revocation of drivers’ (license) is done individually. This is automatic since the same is already programmed in the IT system of the LTO,” Gador said.
That means that once a driver settles his obligation with LTO to get his seized license, the computer automatically signals the office if he is a candidate for license suspension or revocation.
“It is likely that some of the drivers included in the list were already suspended and some are still under suspension depending on the gravity of their violations,” Gador said. (RHM)
