FIRST, the facts. The Land Transportation Office (LTO) ran out of license plates a long time ago under a badly bidded contract to secure 16 million license plates for far less vehicles than will need them. Because it cannot issue license plates, the LTO has not apologized. Instead it has enforced a “no plate, no travel” policy. This is how it goes: No. 1, a motorist pays for a car and for the registration fees that entitle him to license plates for the car. He must pay all that at the same time or he cannot take the car out of the showroom and on the road.
However, No. 2, the LTO cannot deliver the plates he paid for because it has no more plates to deliver under a badly bidded contract.
And so, No. 3, the LTO forbids motorists from using their new cars—which may be their only cars for work and school; not unless they have the license plates that the LTO cannot give them although it is obliged to do that.
And No. 4, if you are caught using your new car without the new license plates that you cannot get from the LTO, the LTO fines you P10,000 for failing to have the license plates it cannot give you.
Wait. Before you fly off the handle and call the LTO all sorts of names, let us consider the evil that the LTO seeks to prevent by this policy of punishing others for its own failure.
Theoretically, there can be people out there who will not pay registration fees and so have no plates, and yet drive around without plates and get caught and because they cannot show registration papers, they just might blame the LTO for running out of plates for which they have no papers. How likely is this to happen?
Over lunch today, we inquired, over a bottle of fine red wine, from car industry experts, which included Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano. They all agreed that it is unlikely that anyone would be so stupid as to try that.
And yet I urge you not to fly off the handle because the tendency to blame others for something you must give them but you cannot is a clear sign of insanity, and insanity should not be scorned, let alone punished because it should be treated. However, there is no treatment for what these experts called administrative insanity except to wait for the end of the term of the administration concerned. And this is forthcoming.
So we urge you all to please be patient. Nobody likes to be crazy. You are just that way. It is not something you want to be. It is not something you can help. And it is not something that can be cured by insulting it. So keep cool and keep well.