Tugade named LTO chief
REFORMS are coming to the Land Transportation Office (LTO) with the naming of Jose Arturo “Jay Art” Tugade as head of the agency.
Tugade, son of former Transportation chief Arthur Tugade, was formally sworn into office by Department of Transportation (DoTr) Secretary Jaime Bautista.
He vowed to implement reforms in the agency and the LTO’s service to the public.
“We are partners for progress, advocates of safety, and must be champions of excellence and efficiency. Foremost, we need to remember that we are in the service industry. Hence, we need to focus and improve the quality of our customer service to the public,” he said.
Tugade replaced Teofilo Guadiz 3rd who was named assistant secretary for the Road Sector of the DoTr.
He committed to intensify the LTO’s campaign on road safety by fortifying the agency’s manpower and increasing the presence of the agency’s enforcers to properly implement transportation laws and traffic codes.
Tugade vowed to weed out the corrupt practices at the LTO. One way to do this is to limit human intervention in various agency transactions through digitalization.
“In order to address corruption, we will take steps to improve transparency and reduce, if not eliminate, human intervention. To this end, we shall exert all efforts to digitalize our agency,” he said.
“What we can assure everyone is that I am an obedient soldier.
I will perform and execute tasks assigned to me with passion and efficiency. I will work closely with Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista to ensure that the direction and marching order of the President of further developing transportation will be delivered,” Tugade added.