POE RELEASE ON COMMITTEE REPORT 184

The Senate public services committee chaired by Sen. Grace Poe has recommended the repeal of the department order and all accompanying issuances delegating the motor vehicle inspection system (MVIS) to private operators.

Calling the Transportation department policy "half-baked," Committee Report No. 184 cited the need for such to go through the normal legislative process inherent in the power of Congress.

"In the meantime, the repeal of DOTr DO (Department Order) 2018-19 and all related issuances is recommended," the Poe panel report said.

"While fees have been lowered for now and testing seems to have been made optional, the implementation of this flawed program must be stopped definitively pending the resolution of issues hounding it," it further said.

CRN 184 detailed the various concerns that have exacerbated motorists' plight. "The issues on the legality of the MVIS privatization, lack of consultation and transparency in accreditation, inadequate number of inspection centers in operation, glitches in the system, and overall incompatibility of private motor vehicle inspection systems with the Land Transportation Office (LTO) IT and landscape of motor vehicles in the country, all remain unresolved without decisive action from the Department."

At the same time, it recommended that the Senate blue ribbon committee conducts further probe on the "highly anomalous transactions" surrounding the accreditation of Private Motor Vehicle Inspection Centers (PMVICs) and officials involved.

"The questionable issuances seem to have created a favorable environment for an oligopoly where only very few players can enter and succeed," the committee report said.

"The inexplicable dark moments during the evaluation process and lack of transparency in the eventual accreditation of winning service providers bear badges of fraud which should be further investigated by the appropriate committee," the Poe panel report added.

Older vehicles are also at risk of being unduly rejected under the current system. "The absence of clear definition of roadworthiness, coupled with identified flaws in the inspection standards, almost guarantees that there will be errors in the test results; not only that this might lead to corruption, some also believe that it intends to facilitate the phaseout of older vehicles without due process."

The Poe panel report emphasized, "The policy of ensuring only roadworthy vehicles ply our roads is commendable, however, a half-baked policy is a bad policy and this Committee won't stand for it."

It also pointed out that with only 24 PMVICs currently operational out of 458 originally targeted by the LTO, the unclear noncompulsory status of the MVIS only leads to more confusion for motorists.

Poe earlier asked the DOTr and the LTO to submit the names of the companies and incorporators of the accredited PMVICs. The report said that 12 out of 24 of them do not have enough capitalization to finance an expensive inspection center costing more than P50 million, and eight others registered as sole proprietorships contained no information as to their financial standing.