DAGUPAN CITY – Long lines of people getting their license cards have prompted personnel of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) district in Dagupan City to start working as early as 5:a.m. until 11 p.m. on weekdays and even on Saturdays.
Aileen Peteros of LTO Dagupan told reporters at the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas (KBP) forum on Thursday that they used to open their office from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. but since there are way too many people lining up to get their license cards, they extended their working hours.
She admitted that they have a 21,000 backlog in license cards to date, from 30,000 in November last year when they were finally given the green light to resume issuance of license cards after exactly one year of suspension.
“We saw to it that there are people already on duty at 5:00 a.m. to issue waiting numbers to early birds who are already lining up in front of the LTO district office as early as 4:00 a.m., said Peteros, adding that they do not receive overtime pay for rendering extra hours of work daily.
She added that the issuance of license cards is on a first come, first served basis, given the limited capacity of their sole printing machine that is manned by two encoders. She said they can only issue 300 license cards per day.
Peteros expressed hope that service at LTO Dagupan can go back to normal in May or June.
The good news, however, is that they have enough supply of license cards.
Peteros added that those who have not yet their license because of the long queue can show their temporary cards to authorities in case they are apprehended for traffic violation. (Leonardo Micua/PNA)
