LTO, cops raid QC firm selling illegal RHD trucks
The Land Transportation Office (LTO) and Quezon City Police District (QCPD) have raided an establishment for selling used right-hand drive (RHD) vehicles, which have been banned in the country since 1998.
In a statement on Sunday, the LTO said that members of its Intelligence and Investigation Division and a Quezon City police team conducted an inspection of Faequip Corp. Yard located at San Pedro Compound 5 on Banlat Road in Barangay Tandang Sora, Quezon City, on May 15. The operation was based on a report on social media that illegally imported vehicles were being sold there.
For verification
During the inspection, the team spotted several secondhand right-hand drive trucks, or those whose steering wheels are situated on the right side.
A QCPD press statement said that when questioned about the source of the vehicles, the operator of the establishment showed a mayor’s permit issued to the owner of Al Tofiq Truck and Parts Corp. Also presented were four original certificates of registration and corresponding LTO-issued plate numbers.
The documents, however, according to the police, were allegedly acquired through a nonappearance transaction at the Iligan City District Office, with each set reportedly costing P15,000.
As a result, the police said the four certificates of registration and four LTO plate numbers—KBF1995, KBF1993, KBF1806 and KBF1994—were seized for further verification.
Two other right-hand drive trucks without documents were also confiscated to determine if their engine and chassis numbers had been tampered with.
“I also ordered a thorough investigation into this matter, particularly on how these imported secondhand, right-hand motor vehicles were registered,” LTO chief Vigor Mendoza II said.
“We have obtained initial information that these motor vehicles were registered in an extraordinary way and we want to identify all the people involved,” he added, hinting that the perpetrators might have connived with LTO personnel to register the illegal vehicles.
Right-hand vehicles are banned in the country under Republic Act No. 8506, which was signed into law in 1998.
According to RA 8506, “it shall be unlawful for any person to import, cause the importation of, register, cause the registration of, use, or operate any vehicle with its steering wheel right-hand side thereof in any highway, street or road, whether private or public or of the national or local government.”
Exemptions
Exempted from the law are “vehicles that are acknowledged as vintage automobiles, manufactured before 1960, in showroom condition, and/or are to be utilized exclusively for officially and legally sanctioned motorsports events, and off-road special purpose vehicles.”
Violators face a jail term of prision correccional in its medium period (equivalent to two years, four months and a day to four years), on top of a fine of P50,000.
The Philippines originally followed a right-hand driving rule under Act No. 3992, imposed in 1932, when the country was still a territory of the United States.
This was changed in 1945 through Executive Order No. 34 signed by then-President Sergio Osmeña who imposed a left-hand driving rule in the country.
“It is deemed advisable to change the existing regulations providing for the driving of vehicles on the left side of the road so that the vehicle traffic in the Philippines shall conform with the practice of driving on the right side of the road obtaining in most countries of the world,” it said.
Osmeña cited the “certain economic advantages” of the new traffic rule, including “[reducing] the price of motor vehicles imported into the Philippines from the United States.”
Most of the countries currently using right-hand vehicles are former colonies of the United Kingdom, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Also using right-hand driving cars in Asia are Japan, Thailand, Brunei and Timor Leste.
