Government & Education Best Posts in Thread: LTO News

1. LTO has issued a directive that says all drivers licenses that are up for renewal in July, August and September will remain valid until October 31, 2023 because of the continuing lack of supply of plastic license cards. ( link )

2. LTO has announced that they will start to issue e-Drivers licenses instead ( link )

3. For renewal of your drivers license there's no need anymore to go to an LTO office, applications for renewal are handled through an online platform now ( link )

4. The yearly "smoketest", insurance and re-registration procedure for motorized vehicles has been changed substantially. The smoketest itself has been extended to include a whole bunch of other tests/checks, the results are automatically uploaded to LTO (same when you get insurance), and the registration process is now also online, at the same platform as the link under 3.

Not sure yet how well it works, will try to re-register our car shortly, and try to renew my drivers license also.

Obviously the expanded "smoketest" is a good thing, even if the costs have doubled. Hopefully it will mean owners of vehicles with defects will be forced to make repairs.

[Edit:] Unfortunately for me none of the online stuff works. In order to register at the LTO portal online you need to put in valid ACRI card details, and mine expired somewhere last year. And no, that doesn't mean I did something wrong, I'm in the country on a 1 year BB stamp, which is a "visa-exempt" stamp that you can get when you enter the Philippines together with your pinay spouse. A BB stamp "holder" isn't required to have an ACRI card, under the BI rules, but the LTO portal doesn't know about that apparently.