LTO cracks down on Non-appearance for registration and renewal fixers

The Land Transportation Office (LTO) is now cracking down on fixers who offer the service of “non-appearance” registration and renewal. It is the practice of having the fixers do all the paperwork without your vehicle ever going to an LTO district office.

LTO Chief Jay Art Tugade has stated that the government office will not tolerate “non-appearance” vehicle registration and renewal any longer, whether it is done on-ground or online as it violates several laws. These laws include Article 315 of the Revised Penal Code or the crime of estafa or swindling, and Republic Act 11032 or the “Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018.” According to Autoindustriya.com, the LTO Chief stated the following.

Time and again, the LTO continues to remind clients not to patronize these spurious characters who offer their illegal services in exchange for a fee to be able to circumvent the process. We wish to reiterate that the motor vehicle registration process was put into place to protect clients and their hard-earned money and to guarantee the safety and roadworthiness of their vehicles.

Jay Art Tugade
LTO Chief

He continues by stating that “If putting an end to this corrupt practice means removing LTO personnel from government service, then so be it. Again, I’d like to remind LTO personnel that I have zero tolerance for corruption. We will weed them out of the Agency if they put the LTO’s name in a bad light.”

According to the LTO chief, the practice of non-appearance opens up the possibility of scams where fraud, theft, estafa, and various other illegal activities can happen that will have legal repercussions and may even put the owner of the vehicle in harm’s way.

With that said, the LTO chief has issued a warning to all agency employees to refrain from entertaining offers from scrupulous individuals that offer these non-appearance services.