There’s nothing more exhilarating to a rider than the experience of buying and riding home a brand-new motorcycle. But wait, are we allowed to ride home on a newly purchased, unregistered motorcycle?

Nope, but most buyers do so anyway. Grab a seat; this is going to get messy.

You see, driving any motor vehicle not registered with the Land Transportation Office (LTO) is a major offense. It has a penalty of ₱ 10,000, and the vehicle will be impounded. After you’ve secured the registration and paid the fines, the unit will be released to you, but good luck bringing it home in one piece.

Anyway, motorcycle buyers are compelled to risk all that by riding home unregistered units because the registration sometimes takes weeks or months, and dealerships will not allow long-term storage. So, why is it taking so long?

And the culprit is...

According to Edwin Go, President of the Motorcycle Dealers Association of the Philippines (MDAP), a new motorcycle registration process in the National Capital Region (NCR) should take 7 to 10 days.

The dealer has seven days to submit all the requirements to the LTO, and the LTO has three days to issue the Certificate of Registration (CR). In provincial areas, some logistical challenges are encountered by both the dealer and the LTO offices, so the process takes a bit longer.

However, if it has been three weeks, let’s say, and the CR of the unit has yet to be issued, then the delay is probably the work of “Eddie.” Who’s Eddie? “Eh di sya,” said Go emphatically.

He went on to explain that despite the LTO’s efforts to solve corruption by implementing the web-based Land Transportation Management System (LTMS), some staff in other LTO offices still enforce the old system of vehicle registration, which is prone to corruption because processes are still done manually by, you guessed it, Eddie.  Eddie will not entertain dealers who follow the LTMS process mandated by LTO.

Tsk tsk...

Aside from adapting a new system, the LTO needs to do some housekeeping. Otherwise, the dealers will continue to get the blame.

Moreover, motorcycle buyers continue to suffer because they have paid for something they can’t ride. What a terrible impact this has on those who intend to use motorcycles for livelihood and commuting to work.

Tsk, tsk! Shame on you, Eddie!