The Land Transportation Office (LTO) plans to shorten the examination for driver’s license applicants to eliminate the reliance on fixers.
LTO Chief Jay Art Tugade on Thursday acknowledged the lengthy procedure is one of the reasons why many driver applicants resort to patronizing fixers.
Tugade organized a committee to analyze the exam questions with instructions to condense the content without sacrificing the purpose aiming to license competent drivers with emphasis on knowledge, skills and attitude.
“The instruction I gave to our committee was to compress the exam. This exam reportedly takes about an hour. The agency is now studying how to shorten the exam,” Tugade said.
He believes that reducing the exam duration, applicants will not seek out fixers and will opt to take the exam themselves, he added.
Tugade noted some student permit applicants pay as much as P15,000 without undergoing training and studying the basic traffic rules.
The exams being studied include those obtained by new non-professional license applicants, new conductor’s license, those changing classification from non-professional to professional, and adding driver’s license codes.
In addition to shortened exams, the committee also plans to customize and relate the questions depending on the applicant’s preferred license code.
In March, the LTO and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group arrested five suspected “fixers” outside the LTO Novaliches District Office in Quezon City.
The LTO said it is accelerating the digitalization of its services to fight fixers and corruption in the agency.
