Gordon tells LTO: Take care in drafting IRR for Motorcycle Crime Prevention Act

Senator Richard Gordon on Sunday urged the Land Transportation Office (LTO) to take extra care in drafting the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) for the law seeking to prevent the use of motorcycles in crimes by mandating bigger plates and other identification marks.

Gordon, who authored and sponsored the "Motorcycle Crime Prevention Act," said the IRR of the law should be in line with its purpose of protecting the public from crimes committed using motorcycles.

“The government is now taking action against riding-in-tandem crimes with the enactment of this law. We should not let this law die because of poor implementation; that is why the LTO should do the IRR properly," Gordon said in a statement.

"The IRR is not law-making. It is just an explanation of how the law will be implemented,” he added.

Gordon said he is intending to write to the LTO to propose a sit-down with them while the IRR is being written so that the agency would properly understand the purpose of the law.

"I have been in discussion with the LTO since the inception of this bill. However, laws die in the implementation. Therefore, the LTO must be careful in writing the IRR," he said.

"As the principal author and sponsor, I would like to help the Committee which will draft the IRR to make sure that it reflects the genuine spirit of the law,” he added.

The LTO, for its part, said that it will consult with riders while drafting the law's IRR.

Under the "Motorcycle Crime Prevention Act," which was signed by President Rodrigo Duterte on March 8, the LTO is mandated to issue bigger, color-coded license plates to every motorcycle in the country.

The plate numbers should be big enough to be readable from a distance of at least 15 meters.

The LTO must also devise a color scheme for the plates that will easily identify the region where a motorcycle was registered.

But riders and transport groups have been opposing the use of bigger license plates for motorcycles, saying that these may endanger the riders as well as pedestrians.

Thousands of riders also gathered on Sunday in a unity ride to oppose the law. — Erwin Colcol/BM, GMA News