LTO regional chief fires back at mayor

CEBU CITY—The chief of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) in Central Visayas has asked Mayor Tomas Osmeña to “leave LTO out of politics.”

Victor Emmanuel Caindec lashed back at Osmeña after the mayor questioned LTO’s failure to release registration papers for vehicles.

“LTO, I have already paid for the fines of 2 motorists who don’t have registration because you haven’t processed their registration. You are punishing them for not having something that you failed to give. Only government is capable of such logic. Get your acts together please,” Osmeña had posted on his official Facebook account last July 10.

Osmeña has promised to pay the fines for motorcycles apprehended by LTO for not having registration.

But Caindec said Osmeña was just playing politics.

“It has come to my attention that the mayor of Cebu City posted on his Facebook about the performance of LTO in processing the registration papers. This issue concerns the whole Region 7, the other LGUs have not make noise about it. By creating a noise, what does he mean? We are inutile?” he said.

Instead of finding fault with LTO, Caindec said Osmeña should focus on solving the problems hounding the city.

“I know how to do my job and I’m not telling him how to do his job. If he wants, he can run LTO and I’ll run the city because the city is faced with so many problems like flooding, garbage and traffic,” said Caindec.

“This agency has been bombarded by criticisms. We are trying to turn around the perception. Do not use LTO for your political gain,” added Caindec.

Caindec said LTO is prioritizing the printing of driver’s licenses.

“Currently, we have a backlog of 13,774 licenses. So what should we prioritize? The release of registration papers which can cause more traffic? We have provided resources to ensure that services that are for the people are properly addressed. This time we are prioritizing the printing of driver’s license,” Caindec said.

He said some car dealers did not heed LTO’s advice not to release vehicles that have no registration papers. “We have explained it to them that this is a resource problem. But we have not made any apprehension because a vehicle has no registration papers. We apprehend because of traffic violations but if we find out that the vehicle has no papers then we will impound it,” said Caindec.

“Based on our records, Cebu City has 240 registered vehicles and 156 of them have expired registrations. They better register them or we will impound them,” warned Caindec.

Caindec also blasted Osmeña for issuing an executive order against counter-flowing.

“Under RA 4126, it is only the LTO that can impound vehicles. I did not interfere because we want to help them solve the traffic. But those motorists whose vehicle was impounded can file a case in court,” he said.