The LTO: Roadblock to PH mobility
The Land Transportation Office (LTO) has once again triggered public outrage—this time by announcing a sudden crackdown on light electric vehicles (LEVs) on major Metro Manila roads, first scheduled for Dec. 1, 2025, then abruptly postponed to January 2026 after public backlash. But the real story isn’t about e-bikes, scooters, or mopeds. It’s about something deeper and more chronic: the LTO’s long-standing incompetence, outdated mindset, and inability to govern a rapidly changing mobility landscape.
The knee-jerk LEV ban announcement was not simply a mistake; it was a symptom of structural decay.
When an agency charged with regulating mobility cannot even conduct a proper information campaign, consult stakeholders, or explain the basis for policy changes, it exposes a fundamental disconnect between authority and responsibility. The LTO has yet to understand a basic rule of modern governance: policies that affect millions, especially low-income commuters, require preparation, transition schemes, and legitimacy-building. Instead, the announcement was sprung on the public as if transportation regulation were a private fiefdom.
This is the dinosaur problem.
The LTO continues to operate with the worldview of the 1970s: cars at the top, pedestrians and cyclists at the bottom, and anything electric treated with suspicion. It cannot grasp that the world has shifted toward inclusive, sustainable, and low-carbon mobility. Instead of seeing LEVs as part of a multimodal future, the agency frames them as nuisances to be removed from major roads—never mind that many LEV users belong to the “base of the pyramid” who cannot afford cars and rely on affordable e-transport for livelihood and mobility.
This is also the corruption problem.
For decades, the LTO has been the first point of contact for many Filipinos with petty corruption. Bribery in licensing, fixers roaming freely outside offices, ghost emission testing centers, fake registration papers, and missing license plates—these are not minor inconveniences but enduring institutional failures.
Consider this: (1) As of 2023, some 13 million vehicles did not have their plates released, years after payment; (2) Emission testing centers remain largely unmonitored, with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources repeatedly flagging fraudulent “pass-all” operations; (3) Driving license backlogs lasted years, due not only to procurement failures but also mismanagement and internal inefficiency; and (4) Road safety enforcement remains nonexistent, with around 200,000 apprehensions yearly—a tiny fraction of the millions of violators nationwide.
If the LTO cannot perform its primary functions—licensing drivers, registering vehicles, enforcing rules, and ensuring roadworthiness—how can it govern the future of transportation?
Then there is the governance and leadership problem.
The LTO has never had a visionary head. Not one administrator in the past 40 years is known for pioneering safe streets, sustainable mobility, modern transport governance, or evidence-based policymaking. Most have been political appointees lacking technical qualifications. The agency has never institutionalized futures thinking, scenario planning, or strategic foresight—tools used worldwide to prepare for emerging mobility technologies.
Compare this with: (1) Singapore’s Land Transport Authority, which plans mobility decades in the future; (2) Seoul’s Transport Operation & Information Service, which integrates real-time traffic technologies; and (3) Amsterdam’s cycling-led urban mobility planning, where governance supports modal shift.
The Philippines, meanwhile, has an LTO that cannot even decide if e-bikes belong on the road without causing national confusion.
The LEV crackdown reveals an agency that equates regulatory power with regulatory wisdom. They are not the same. Transportation regulation is not about asserting authority—it is about building safe, inclusive, people-centered mobility systems. That requires evidence, consultation, public trust, and empathy.
Filipinos deserve a transportation regulator that understands modern mobility—not one frozen in time, reacting to change instead of anticipating it. The LEV fiasco is not an isolated blunder. It is a reflection of an agency long overdue for complete institutional reinvention.
The LTO is not just outdated—it is obstructing the country’s ability to build a safer, cleaner, and more equitable mobility future.
The LTO cannot deliver sustainable and inclusive mobility in its current form. The LTO lacks: (1) foresight; (2) policy planning capacity; (3) regulatory professionalism; (3) public consultation competence; (4) ethical culture; (5) technological modernization; (6) interagency alignment; and (7) public trust.
Until structural reforms are made, the LTO will remain: (1) a dinosaur agency in a devolved mobility world; (2) a bottleneck to sustainable transport; and (3) a symbol of everyday corruption for Filipinos.
The e-vehicle crackdown fiasco is only the latest demonstration.
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doyromero@gmail.com
