Marcos orders one-month grace period for e-bike, e-trike ban

PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. on Thursday ordered the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and local government units in the capital region to give e-bike and etrike users that pass through national roads a month-long grace period so they can familiarize themselves with the ban and penalties.

“It is necessary to give enough time for the wide disclosure of information regarding the ban that we are implementing,” he said in an X post in Filipino on Thursday. E-bikes and e-trikes should not be issued tickets, fined or impounded during the grace period, he added.

The MMDA on Monday said it would start issuing traffic violation tickets to e-bikes, e-trikes and other light vehicles caught using national roads starting April 17.

The MMDA banned light vehicles from major roads due to the growing number of accidents involving these vehicles. It recorded 2,829 accidents in 2022 involving bikes, e-bikes and pedicabs.

Under the rules, violators will be fined P2,500.

“We need to give them an opportunity to know what the new rules are and how they should adjust,” Mr. Marcos said in Filipino in a video posted on the Presidential Communications Office’s Facebook page.

Mr. Marcos said the P2,500 is a lot of money “so let’s give them a month.”

Acting MMDA Chairman Romando S. Artes will hold a news briefing on Friday to address the President’s order, the agency told reporters in a Viber message.

Meanwhile, the Land Transportation Office (LTO) said it is fast-tracking the production of plate numbers before it enforces a “no plate, no travel” policy for motor vehicles starting July 1, LTO Assistant Secretary Vigor D. Mendoza II said at the agency’s 112th founding anniversary celebration.

The agency would shutter car dealers that fail to observe the five-day rule on the release of the official receipt/certificate of registration and license plates to their clients, he said.

“Starting next week, I’ll be visiting district offices and dealers,” Mr. Mendoza said. “I would like to start closing [and] suspending the operations of dealers who give LTO a bad light,” he added, noting that the LTO gets blamed for delayed plates when it is really the dealer’s fault.

“If they don’t release the plates within the [agreed timeframe], we will close them down,” he added.

Mr. Mendoza said the LTO has 12 billion backlogs on motorcycle plates. “We are still [facing] the enormous task [that] was passed on to us when we started here — 12 billion backlogs in motorcycles when we started the year. We’re down to 9 million.” —