“The beauty of the system is that a vehicle need not be flagged down. The scanner instantaneously reads a vehicle’s RFID data as it travels.”
If we want to put a stop to carnapping, the best way is to modernize our vehicle registration system. Most of the vehicles stolen in the Philippines are moved away from their original area using fake license plates, registration papers and crude re-stamping of the engine and chassis numbers, carnappers resell these to unsuspecting buyers. Vehicles carnapped in Luzon are shipped to the Visayas or Mindano, while those stolen in the south find themselves in Metro Manila.
An ingenious project of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) would not only combat the pernicious problem of carnapping, it would also ensure the proper registration of vehicles, their compliance with the Clean Air Act and anti-smoke belching regulations and force drivers to settle their fines. For public utility vehicles, it would be easier to check that those operating on their routes have valid franchises for the designated routes.
Sadly, now that the LTO’s Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) project is about to begin, it has been under attack by those who would profit most from the project. The project would place electronically encoded RFID tags, the size of the present LTO stickers, on the windshields of all vehicles.
These RFID stickers carry all the necessary information on vehicles (license, engine, chassis numbers, last registration date, present owner, etc). All that a law enforcer has to do is point his scanner at a vehicle to determine if there are flash alarms on it, whether it had been properly registered, whether its driver had settled traffic citation tickets or, again in the case of a PUV, whether it is within its franchised route, or if it even has a valid franchise to start with.
The beauty of the system is that a vehicle need not be flagged down. The scanner instantaneously reads a vehicle’s RFID data as it travels. No need to ask for the registration papers or any other papers – one press of the scanner button gives him everything he needs to know about the vehicle.
How many enforcers have been gunned down as they approached a vehicle? And how many enforcers have mistakenly shot up a guiltless driver just because he had a similar model as the police hunts one down?
Remember that case a few years ago, when a red Toyota Vios was shot at by lawmen at a checkpoint in C-5 after being mistaken for a stolen red Toyota Altis that was the subject of a hot pursuit? With the RFID installed in all vehicles, no cop can mistake the identity of even two vehicles with the same model year, make and color.
The LTO’s RFID system would even be more advanced than the system used in many states in the US, where American policemen still have to radio home base or check an onboard computer to verify a vehicle. The RFID provides our law enforcers total information at the touch of a button.
Motorists can stop worrying about being carnapped or carjacked; operators of valid franchises whose competition are drivers and operators of colorum vehicles strongly support the RFID project to be implemented by LTO with its IT partner Stradcom.
Assistant Secretary Art Lomibao has been holding public hearings with motoring and public transport groups and the general reaction has been that the RFID should have been started long ago. To which, the LTO had replied that it would not have been possible in the past without the computerization of the LTO database, again carried out by STRADCOM, and without the electronic interconnection with government agencies.
The RFID would cost only P350 per vehicle and would be good for 10 years, thus its effective cost would be P35 per year. Consider that motorists pay thousands and thousands of pesos per year for comprehensive insurance to guard against carnapping. Is P35 per year too much to pay for a little peace of mind?
Environmentalists also welcome the LTO’s RFID project; once and for all, the RFID solves the problem of smoke-belching vehicles, which can no longer fake their carbon emission tests
ACTO Action Transport Group Isabela Chairman Efren De Luna admits that the transport sector had initial apprehension about the use of the new technology but after the briefing made by the LTO, he said: “If it will help solve problems on colorum jeepneys, there is no reason why the transport groups will not support this initiative.”
1-UTAK, Alliance of Concerned Transport Organizations (ACTO), Cebu South Mini-Bus Operators Association (CSMBOA), Federation of Jeepney Operators and Drivers Association of the Philippines (FEJODAP), Alliance of Transport Operators and Drivers Association of the Philippines (ALTODAP), and Cebu Integrated Transport Services Cooperative, among other transport groups, who know what’s good for the transport industry, support the RFID. Why shouldn’t you?
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We have a letter: “Regarding your comments on the present quality of our senators, I think that this is the direct result of the elimination of the two-party system. When the system existed, the Nacionalista and Liberal parties fielded candidates who had at least some qualifications other than being popular.
“They were chosen by the parties for their past political or professional track record and political stature which, at the time, were some of the major reasons for voting for a senatorial candidate. Under the present system where numerous political parties are allowed to exist, anybody can run for the Senate with nothing but popularity (actors, singers, athletes) and the support of vested interests such as the police, military or the media or the ability to personally fund their own campaigns. The result is the present Senate.
“I think what should be eliminated is not the Senate but the uncontrolled proliferation of political parties. Any political party that cannot field a reasonable number of local candidates, say in at least 1/3 (more is better) of the regions in the country, should not be allowed to exist for more than one election cycle. Such a requirement would immediately reduce the number of political parties to a reasonable few and might eventually take the country back to, perhaps, 3 political parties. That would certainly be much better than the present where there are as many political parties as people with delusions of being President.” — Antonio N. Figueroa, New Jersey, USA
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hvp 09.28.09
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