SENATORS sought the repeal Tuesday of a Department of Transportation (DOTr) order delegating to private operators the transport department’s motor vehicle inspection system (MVIS).
Sen. Grace Poe, who chairs the Senate Public Services Committee, confirmed that members of the panel moved to revoke DOTr’s Department Order No.2018-19, as well as “all accompanying issuances” delegating the motor vehicle inspection system to private operators.
In Committee Report 184 finding the Transportation department policy “half-baked,” the Senate panel cited “the need for such to go through the normal legislative process inherent in the power of Congress.”
It asserted that “in the meantime, the repeal of DOTr DO (Department Order) 2018-19 and all related issuances is recommended.”
The Poe panel report added: “While fees have been lowered for now and testing seems to have been made optional, the implementation of this flawed program must be stopped definitively pending the resolution of issues hounding it.”
The committee report detailed various concerns that exacerbated motorists’ plight, listing “issues on the legality of the MVIS privatization, lack of consultation and transparency in accreditation, inadequate number of inspection centers in operation, glitches in the system, and overall incompatibility of private motor vehicle inspection systems with the Land Transportation Office (LTO) IT and landscape of motor vehicles in the country, all remain unresolved without decisive action from the department.”
At the same time, it recommended that the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee conducts further probe on the “highly anomalous transactions” surrounding the accreditation of Private Motor Vehicle Inspection Centers (PMVICs) and officials involved.
Moreover, Senate probers found that “questionable issuances seem to have created a favorable environment for an oligopoly where only very few players can enter and succeed.”
The panel’s report also cited “inexplicable dark moments during the evaluation process and lack of transparency in the eventual accreditation of winning service providers bear badges of fraud which should be further investigated by the appropriate committee.”
It likewise reminded that older vehicles are also at risk of being unduly rejected under the current system, adding, “The absence of clear definition of roadworthiness, coupled with identified flaws in the inspection standards, almost guarantees that there will be errors in the test results; not only that this might lead to corruption, some also believe that it intends to facilitate the phase out of older vehicles without due process.”
The panel report also stressed that “the policy of ensuring only roadworthy vehicles ply our roads is commendable, however, a half-baked policy is a bad policy and this committee won’t stand for it.” The lawmakers likewise pointed out that with only 24 PMVICs currently operational out of 458 originally targeted by the LTO, “the unclear non-compulsory status of the MVIS only leads to more confusion for motorists.”
Poe had earlier required the DOTr and LTO to submit the names of the companies and incorporators of the accredited PMVICs. The panel report noted that 12 out of 24 of them do not have enough capitalization to finance an expensive inspection center costing more than P50 million, and eight others registered as sole proprietorships contained no information as to their financial standing.
