The Department of Transportation–Land Transportation Office (DOTr-LTO) signed a Contract of Agreement with a Philippine telecommunication and digital services company, which will pave the way for better and faster Internet connectivity for all LTO offices nationwide.
According to a recent press release, this reassures the Agency of a more reliable, cost-efficient, high availability, and almost zero downtime Internet connectivity in 229 of its offices nationwide.
The ceremonial signing marks the partnership to which the company won the contract for the Procurement of Primary Leased Line Subscription Project worth PHP 240 million (approximately US$ 4.5 million).
The PHP 240 million Procurement of Primary Leased Line Subscription Project is under the DOTr Road Transportation IT Infrastructure-LTO Component B Project.
Moving Forward
With the help of the telecommunications company, the LTO will be aided in its ‘Moving Forward’ efforts.
The government agency is trying to improve the services that they are providing and is counting on the full support of the company in attaining their objectives.
Prior to this project, the Land Transportation Office had to rely on various internet service providers, which resulted in frequent downtime and transaction delays.
Also included in among its Moving Forward efforts is the recently launched online payment system for new registration of motor vehicles and motorcycles of the Land Transportation Office.
As reported, the implementation was intended for the initial 3 years registration fees of new motor vehicles and motorcycles (MV/MC).
In preparation for the nationwide implementation, experiences and insights on the online assessment and payment systems were shared through orientation seminars.
The Benefits
The Agency had observed a reduction in processing time as the program is already being implemented in Metro Manila.
They have also lessened the usually heavy queueing previously experienced for new registration transactions.
The Agency is using the Electronic Payment Assessment Tool (e-PAT), which is a web-based facility that computes the amount to be paid without human intervention, thereby eliminating the opportunity to bribe or extort.
Eliminating Red Tape
For the online payment transactions, they have partnered with the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP), a universal bank in the country that is owned by the government.
The computed amount from the e-PAT and other details for the payment are then cascaded to the Land Bank of the Philippines – Electronic Payment Portal (LBP-EPP).
From there, the motor vehicle and motorcycle (MV/MC) dealers can use their LBP account to pay for the transaction online.
The payment will then be reflected at the LTO-Information Technology (IT) System. This enables faster issuance of the vehicle’s Official Receipt (OR) and Certificate of Registration (CR).
The Agency launched the use of Internet-based payment system for Metro Manila transactions in June 2018.
This initiative is in response to the call of President Rodrigo Duterte to eradicate corruption and red tape transactions in government agencies.
Also, this is in accordance to Republic Act No. 11032, otherwise known as the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018.
