LTO's Promise: Issuance of Plastic Driver's Licenses to Normalize in 'Three to Four Months'

The delay in the issuance of driver’s license cards will finally be addressed with the awarding of the supply contract to a new bidder, the Department of Transportation (DOTr) has said. 

After Banner Plasticard Inc. was named the new supplier for the plastic cards, the DOTr said the process of license card issuance will normalize as early as September 2023.

The contract was awarded to Banner after the company went through post-qualification processes, following the post-disqualification of the earlier named winning bidder Allcard Inc., according to Transportation Undersecretary for Administration and Finance Kim Robert De Leon.

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“We received a lower bid, but after going through the post-qualification process, which entails getting feedback from other government agencies and private companies where they rendered services—Allcard was post-disqualified,” he said in a press conference on Tuesday. 

The DOTR received feedback from several agencies and companies that contracted the bidders, De Leon added.  

With the new supplier, the Land Transportation Office (LTO) said it now expects the “imbalance between the supply and demand” for the license cards to normalize.

“We have all the optimism to say that the delivery or issuance of plastic license cards will be normalized within three to four months,” LTO Chief Hector Villacorta said. 

Banner Plasticard VP Arnel Barbierra said it commits to deliver the first 100,000 cards to the LTO by end of July, and another one million cards by August 26.

Under the terms of reference for the contract, Banner is required to supply the LTO with a total of 5.2 million cards. Within the first 60 days, Banner has to deliver one million cards and 1.5 million every 60 days. 

Villacorta said that demand for plastic cards is “low” these days given the extension of the validity of expiring cards to October 31, as well as the recent issuance of paper license cards to motorists. He added that the agency will prioritize giving supplies to high-demand areas, citing the National Capital Region, Region IV, and Cebu. 

The LTO promised that delays in the issuance of plastic driver’s licenses will be resolved before the end of the year.

The LTO has been barraged with thousands of applicants for the plastic driver’s licenses over past few months, which Villacorta described as a “card crisis,” after previous administrators of the agency reportedly failed to procure the supply of plastic cards for 2022. 

As of early June, there were about 690,000 physical licenses, a mix of new applications and renewals, that the LTO failed to provide motorists.