THE Land Transportation Office (LTO) in Bacolod City is waiting for the guidelines from their central office regarding the new policies to be implemented under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.

LTO-Bacolod head Renato Novero said they will surely implement the new five-year driver’s license that will take effect starting October this year.

He said there are already about a million plastic driver’s licenses that are available in Western Visayas, based on the assurance of LTO-Western Visayas Regional Director Dennis Singson.

On the issuance of new plates, Novero said this could not be implemented yet because LTO lost in the case filed before the Supreme Court (SC) and the Commission on Audit (COA).

For those who already paid P450 for the replacement of new plates, the refund is not also certain, he said.

In January 2016, the LTO issued Memorandum Circular AVT-2014-1895, mandating vehicle owners to replace their old license plates with the new standardized plates.

The standardization program aims to curb illegal practices such as “tanggal-plaka” or plate removal, or switching which is prevalent in car thefts and colorum public utility vehicles.

This program will also phase out the nine various designs of license.

However, the COA temporarily disallowed the collection of fees for replacement of the old license plate.

The SC also stopped the release of thousands of plates donated to the LTO.

The court issued a temporary restraining order barring the LTO and the Department of Transportation from disposing of 300,000 license plates for motor vehicles and 400,000 plates for motorcycles.(TDE)