Sen. Richard Gordon slammed the Land Transportation Office (LTO) for failing to implement Republic Act 11235, also known as the Motorcycle Crime Prevention Act, which was passed nearly three years ago.
“The first batch of license plates for motorcycles was distributed on Aug. 27, 2020. The LTO still needs to produce 18 million motorcycle plates by June 2022,” he said.
Gordon provided details from the partial Senate blue ribbon committee report on the alleged failure to implement RA 11235— which he authored and which, he said, was passed “to protect the public, and to have a full arsenal against criminals using motorcycles.”
He reprimanded the agency for what he called “unconscionable and inordinate delays” in releasing motorcycle plates as well as cited the Philippine National Police data on killings perpetrated by “riding in tandem,” or motorcycle-riding gunmen. Of the 19,277 crimes from 2016 to January 2021, 7,123 are murder cases
Gordon also slammed the delay in the alleged failure to establish the joint LTO – PNP Operations and Control Center two years after the signing of the law.
Section 15 of the RA 11235 provides that the LTO is mandated to set up a 24/7 command center which will function as an action center for the reporting on the commission of crimes perpetrated through the use of stolen vehicles, especially stolen motorcycles.
The said command center should include text blasts warning people on the occurrence of killings, and other crimes.
“The implementation of the law has been delayed so the (Senate) Blue Ribbon committee was forced to call hearings to determine what caused the delays,” Gordon said.
“Non-implementation of the law can have dire consequences for our people. Many suffered injuries or died because of this dereliction of duty,” he added.
Gordon, the chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, has began an investigation into the Motorcycle Crime Prevention Act’s non-implementation.
The investigation revealed that five motorcycle dealers falsified documents, defrauding the government of billions of pesos in sales taxes.