Gains of PMVIC bared
WHEN Mang Rey (not his real name) needed to renew his registration, he went to a Private Emission Testing Center (PETC) and had his carbon emission tested for P450. The motor vehicle insurance policy, of which the lowest policy, a TPL (third party liability), costs P650, cost up to P1,100.
Mang Rey then went to the Land Transportation Office (LTO) office and applied for his vehicle registration renewal. He first needed to get a manual, visual vehicle inspection.
That entire process cost Mang Rey P2,151. This includes the P500 allegedly for the LTO officer who conducted the manual visual inspection.
At a private motor vehicle inspection center (PMVIC), P400 includes vehicle inspection and emission testing. The insurance policy costs P650. PMVIC inspection results are transmitted and uploaded directly to the LTO system without any human intervention.
This is the objective of DOTr’s service automation project – to streamline the transaction between the transport department’s many agencies with citizens who require their services. The first and most successful of this was the Drivers License Acquisition and Renewal Program that eliminated the middlemen (read: fixers) and allowed for a smoother, less corrupt process of getting a drivers license.
Transport Secretary Arthur Tugade said he believes the lesser human contact between his agency people and their clients, the lesser chances for corruption and smoother the process. A driver’s license can now be renewed in at most one and a half hour.
This is also what the PMVIC program wants to achieve. However, the use of alleged fixers has been resorted to by many motorists. The guarantee of a successful renewal gives customers a misplaced sense of convenience that perpetuates corruption, and worse, puts lives at risk because “cheaper is better.”
