MABALACAT CITY -- The Land Transportation Office (LTO) has projected that the backlog on vehicle license plates will be cleared by the middle of 2020.

After the establishment of its plate-making facility, the office has produced 2.2 million license plates.

The LTO is continuously producing plates for vehicles that were registered from 2015 to June 2016, after the issue on the Commission on Audit (COA) disallowance was resolved.

From 2.2 million, more than 2.047 million plates were produced for vehicles registered from July 2016 up to present.

All vehicles registered since the Duterte administration started already have license plates. These include some 246,376 vehicles registered before July 2016.

Most of the license plates were already distributed to regional offices and are set for distribution to the owners.

In 2014, the transportation agency stopped issuing plates after the COA disallowed the suspension of production contract.