The Land Transportation Office-Information Technology (LTO-IT) Project covers the development of an integrated IT system that interconnects about 250 LTO offices, automates and integrates its core business processes, such as issuance of driver’s license and motor vehicle registration, and enables online and real time processing of transactions.

The computerization project transforms LTO into a modernized agency that provides better public service in terms of accuracy and efficiency, and promotes transparency and good governance.

Undertaken through a Build-Own-Operate (BOO) scheme under the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) Law, the government has no cash-out for this P 3.4-billion project. Stradcom Corporation provides the service and collects fees from the served public.

On December 15, 1997, the government, through the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and the Land Transportation Office (LTO) awarded what was then still the Stradcom consortium the contract for the construction and operation of an information technology infrastructure for the LTO.

Incorporated on January 6, 1998, Stradcom Corporation was formed to serve as the vehicle company for the consortium that won the bidding for the LTO-IT project.

Stradcom Corporation is wholly owned by Stradcom International Holdings, Inc. (SIHI). SIHI is a holding corporation that is indirectly owned by principal shareholders, Strategic Alliance Development Corporation (STRADEC) and Comfac Corporation, through United Information Technologies, Inc. (UNITE), and by ePLDT, Inc. and International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group.

The Stradcom consortium bested four other bidders for this project. It submitted the lowest fee at only P120 to be charged each customer. This was far below the P300 fee ceiling set by the NEDA-ICC. At the same time, Stradcom increased its fee by only 8 percent per year and now charges only P168, five years after initial implementation of the project.

Does the system work? It does.

Finding myself in Puerto Princesa City in Palawan when my license was up for renewal earlier this year, I presented myself to the LTO office and – within an hour – had my renewed license. Why did it take an hour? The main reason was that the LTO office did not have the space, the facilities and the personnel to process its daily overflow crowd of those applying for drivers’ licenses and registering their vehicles.

Of course, however, there will be delays and occasional outages. How does an IT system work when the lights go off? Stradcom has set up a nationwide system which the power infrastructure of the country cannot yet fully support.

The LTO Information Technology (IT) system set up by Stradcom Corporation in 2003 is a build-operate-own (BOO) project. Stradcom shoulders the full cost of setting up the computerized network, including the continuous upgrading of computers, programs and associated equipment.

Stradcom is heaven-sent to drivers and motor vehicle owners. Stradcom reduced the processing time of driver’s license to a maximum of two hours; this used to take three to six months! Registering motor vehicles is also much faster now.

Is Stradcom making a killing? It might seem so. Total transactions on motor vehicle registrations and drivers’ licenses came close to nine million in 2006. That would have given Stradcom a revenue of over a billion pesos. That seems like a lot of money until one has to pay for equipment and personnel in each of the 250 LTO locations all over the country and the interconnection of all of these offices in a country where the power and communications infrastructures are less than ideal.

Critics of the LTO-IT project make a mountain out of a molehill on the manual processing of licenses and registrations by the LTO, on the rare occasions of power outages and computer downtimes.

The LTO cannot be expected to stop processing licenses and registrations just because of a power outage. Critics say that Stradcom should not collect its usual fee at these times. That makes no sense since the few manually processed documents are also uploaded to the computers of the LTO-IT system to form part of the total database. Thus, it makes no sense to deny Stradcom its per-transaction fee, just because it did not participate in the issuance of the document.

Another sticking point seems to be the BOO contract. Why, say the jaundiced critics, does Stradcom continue to own the equipment? In reality, it is actually the only way for the equipment to be able to do its job. Computers have high rates of obsolescence. Can we expect government with its very strict rules on procurement and disposal to always have the best equipment available?

Look at what happened to the build-operate-transfer (BOT) Social Security System (SSS) computerization scheme. It is now snail-paced after being transferred to the SSS at the end of the BOT contract. This is because the government does not have the funds or the expertise to continuously update the system.

Since installing the LTO-IT system, Stradcom has had to spend continuously and heavily on upgrading its system, updating its equipment and keeping the network working sometimes under the most adverse conditions.

At this point in time, although a few years have passed, we all ought to give Stradcom some space. The LTO-IT system is still a work in progress and the Stradcom BOO still has some years to it.

That it is working well enough to give me a license wherever in the country I may find myself is better than what we had to go through before just to get a license is good enough for me – for now.

By the way, Stradcom provides only the IT system and links. Another contractor provides the actual driver’s license, the car registration – including plates and stickers.

If your driver’s license self-destructs, go to any LTO office and they’ll give you a new one at no cost to you.

Don’t buy the plastic wallet that they sell at the LTO offices. When plastic comes in contact with the actual license, the image could, over time, transfer to the plastic. Then, it would have "self-destructed."