Thursday, March 20, 2008
LTO 7 chief reviews documents of Toledo cars
THE Land Transportation Office (LTO) in Manila is evaluating all the documents related to the registration of more than 6,000 vehicles in Toledo City to determine what cases they will file against erring personnel.
Three boxes of registration documents were submitted to the House committee on good government, headed by Rep. Pedro Romualdo.
However, Romualdo ordered LTO 7 Director Raul Aguilos and Assistant Secretary Alberto Suansing to get the documents back, evaluate them and submit a report to the committee when the hearing resumes next month.
The documents were issued by Gavino Padin, then LTO registrar of Toledo City in 2006.
Padin admitted under oath to the committee that he registered the 6,703 vehicles in Toledo City in 2006, or more than double the 2,900 units he enlisted in 2005.
Suansing, in an interview with Sun.Star Cebu during the March 5 hearing, said he found some violations in the registration of several tax-deficient vehicles in Toledo City and assured the committee that those involved will not only be dismissed from the service but also charged in court.
Suansing took over as LTO chief only last February, replacing Assistant Secretary Reynaldo Berroya, accused by the LTO registrar in Diliman, Quezon City for approving the assignment of issued plate numbers to the vehicles registered in Cebu.
A team created by Suansing to evaluate the documents from Toledo City will focus on whether or not Padin registered the vehicles, especially the sports utility vehicles (SUV), with complete requirements under Republic Act 4136, otherwise known as the Traffic Code.
If a vehicle is imported, one of the requirements in the registration is the certificate of payment (CP) of duties and taxes issued by the Bureau of Customs (BOC).
If a vehicle is assembled in the country, the requirements are the accreditation of the assembler from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and proof of payment of assembler’s tax from the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).
In the next committee hearing, which is tentatively scheduled on April 16, the first owners of tax-deficient vehicles are invited as resource persons to shed light on how they acquired the units.
Rep. Antonio Cuenco (Cebu City, south), the principal author of House Resolution 320 calling for the vehicle smuggling investigation, said that it’s better to invite the first owners because the second, third or fourth owners are claiming they are “buyers in good faith.” They should be spared from paying the tax deficiency. (EOB)
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