THE Land Transportation Office in Central Visayas (LTO-7) has started printing and releasing driver’s license cards with the five-year validity.
LTO-7 Acting Regional Director Anita C. Pulga said last week that they applied for a faster internet connection with the Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) and Globe Telecommunications to be installed in all the licensing offices.
“PLDT and Globe have already promised to us that they will be installing sufficient internet connection that we need, hopefully within the month because we really need to have a 100 mbps to print in a shorter time,”Pulga said in a press conference yesterday.
With the new machine and a faster internet connection, it would only take a minute or less to print the driver’s license cards.
Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Lloyd Dino was the first one to get his driver’s license during the ceremonial roll-out yesterday.
“In my experience, normally it would take you several hours to get it from writing your form to the picture taking. It would take you over an hour and this time around, it only took 5 minutes for me to have my driver’s license. Then at the same time it’s already plastic, not paper. So those who are driving without the license, please go to the respective LTO offices and have your driver’s license renewed or file an application,” Dino said.
President Rodrigo Duterte ordered LTO and the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to lengthen the validity of the driver’s license from three to five years.
Of the 19 licensing offices in region 7, eight offices started issuing the driver’s licenses for the present and backlog transactions. Pulga said the other 11 offices have internet connection concerns.
“A total of 343, 917 backlogs dated from November 2, 2016 to November 30, 2017 in Central Visayas,” she said.
The Cebu City Licensing Center alone has a backlog of 41, 671.
“PLDT and Globe cannot give us 100 mbps in all sites so there are offices which were only installed 10-15mbps, so it would took them 15 minutes to print the card, that’s why we really applied for the 100 mbps or more than that to go fast,” she said.
Among the offices are the Cebu City Licensing Center, Lapu-Lapu City Extension Office, Danao City District Office, Talisay City Extension Office, Carcar City District Office and Toledo City for Cebu Province.
For Negros Oriental, the Bayawan City District Office and DLRO Robinson’s Dumaguete will accommodate the transactions.
For the Province of Bohol, she said the 100 Mbps internet connection will be installed within the month.
Each licensing site can print 300 to 400 cards a day depending on the internet connection, according to Pulga.
Furthermore, additional information such as the blood type, emergency contact person, emergency contact address and the emergency contact numbers will be engraved on the cards.
The Regional Director said each office has two working stations, one to prioritize the backlog license cards, while the other one will accommodate the new applicants.
All licensing offices will also be opened on Saturdays from 8 p.m to 5 p.m.