1.7 million unclaimed license plates were discovered by the LTO.

The Land Transportation Office was cited by state auditors for failing to supply more than 1.7 million license plates. Transportation authorities stated that although the plates had not yet been distributed, they were already in regional offices.

There are still 1,797,115 motor vehicle license plates on the LTO's backlog, according to earlier statements from the Commission on Audit. When owners renewed their registrations for their four-wheeled motor vehicles as long back as 2015, this related to the replacement plates they paid for.

According to the state auditor, LTO only actually created 764,514 plates. Nevertheless, an LTO representative told Rappler that the organization had discovered there is no backlog of replacement plates after conducting an inventory audit of license plates across regional offices.

“We currently have 1.7 [million] pieces undistributed since 2016. These plates are actually a direct replacement for the green plates,” LTO spokesperson Alex Uy told Rappler in an interview on Wednesday, July 19. “The replacement plates are all in the regional offices.”

According to papers provided to Rappler, there are still millions of unclaimed plates stored in various LTO offices and dealers. The LTO is getting ready to establish a website where drivers can go to claim their plates. There, they may enter the number of their current license plate to check whether a replacement is available and where it will be located. Additionally, the website will function for those whose license plates have not yet been produced, enabling drivers to learn when their plate will be available.

The website might be live as early as July 20, according to the LTO's transportation secretary. The LTO welcomed the delivery of 108,400 motor vehicle plates, the first shipment of 16,040,640 plates acquired by the Department of Transportation, even though the agency still needs to catch up with several million more plates.

Trojan-Tonnjes Joint Venture, the successful bidder, will send 60,000 plates to the LTO each week. The government was able to save P1.2 billion thanks to the "transparent bidding" process, and the backlog of motorbike license plates should be cleared up by the start of the next year.