SC lifts TRO on license plates, paves way for its release

January 23, 2018

The Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a temporary restraining order issued in June 2016 stopping the release of 300,000 pairs of license plates for motor vehicles and 400,000 plates for motorcycles seized by the Bureau of Customs and donated to the Land Transportation Office (LTO) last April.

During its en banc session, the 15-member bench ruled to dismiss the petition filed by Reps. Jonathan Dela Cruz of Abakada party-list and Gustavo Tambunting of Parañaque questioning the legality of the Customs' move.

In its ruling, the SC unanimously declared as constitutional the use of the appropriation under the Motor Vehicle Registration and Driver’s Licensing Regulatory Services in the General Appropriations Act of 2014 to implement the LTO Motor Vehicle License Plate Standardization Program of the Department of Transportation.

“The Court ruled that the 2014 GAA included an appropriation for the program and the use of the appropriation is constitutional,” SC spokesperson Theodore Te, said in a media briefing.

The program, which shall run from July 2013 to June 2018 has a budget of P3.8 billion to buy license plates for 5, 236, 439 motor vehicles and 9, 968,017 for motorcycles nationwide. DMS