Sunday, May 18, 2008 Official needs copy of order to implement registrars' suspension
THE Land Transportation Office (LTO) 7 has yet to receive the order suspending registrars Gavino Padin and Aurelia Angcay from the service.
Padin was the registrar of LTO Toledo City in 2006 and 2007 when more than 1,000 questionable sports utility vehicles and luxury cars were registered. Angcay, on the other hand, is the incumbent LTO registrar in Lapu-Lapu City.
LTO 7 Director Raul Aguilos said he only heard from Assistant Secretary Alberto Suansing that Padin and Angcay have been placed under preventive suspension, but he needs a copy of the order for him to enforce it.
He added that he doesn’t have all the details of the report on the investigation against Padin and Angcay because LTO Manila personnel conducted it.
Aguilos also clarified that the suspension order does not mean that Padin and Angcay have been found guilty of violating LTO rules and regulations in the registration of vehicles.
“This is just a preventive suspension and this is not a penalty,” Aguilos said.
Reports about the registration of smuggled vehicles have provoked a congressional committee investigation, as the practice not only hurts legitimate auto dealers but also robs the government of badly needed revenues.
Angcay, in an ambush interview yesterday in Punta Princesa, Cebu City, said that it seems she has been made a “sacrificial lamb.” She, however, did not elaborate. She also said she will go to the LTO Central Office in Manila tomorrow to ask what she did to merit the preventive suspension.
She said she only registered imported vehicles that had, attached to the application, a certificate of payment or duties and taxes issued by the Bureau of Customs. As LTO registrar, she has no authority to question the amount of taxes paid for a vehicle, she added.
Angcay also wondered why only she and Padin were issued preventive suspension orders when several officials in LTO 7 are under investigation for more serious offenses.
She added that with due respect to her superiors, she wants a review of the investigation report that served as the basis for the preventive suspension.
As of last Friday, Angcay was still performing as LTO registrar in Lapu-Lapu City. (EOB)
