House orders recall of all issued "8" protocol plates

The House of Representatives has ordered the recall of all protocol license plates bearing the number 8, after a vehicle caught improperly using the EDSA bus lane bore the government-issued number.

In a memorandum to House members dated November 16, Secretary General Reginald Velasco requested "the immediate recall of all expired Protocol Plates No. 8 issued during the past Congresses as well as all spurious protocol 8 plates which may have come to your attention."

Last week, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) suspended Task Force Special Operations chief Bong Nebrija for saying that vehicles belonging to Senator Bong Revilla and former Ako-Bicol party-list representative Christopher Co had improperly used the EDSA busway. Nebrija and the MMDA later apologized to Revilla and to Co after they said that they had not used the special lane.  

In Co's case, Nebrija had said that one of the vehicles caught using the EDSA bus lane bore a protocol plate 8 owned by the former congressman. Co reached out to the agency and asked for the names of the motorists who had tagged him in the EDSA bus lane violation.

“Although ‘yung protocol plate ay naka-issue sa pangalan ni Mr. Co, hindi po kanyang sasakyan at hindi po kanyang driver ‘yung nag-name drop sa kanya,” MMDA Chairman Romando Artes said.

(Although the protocol plate was issued to Mr. Co, the vehicle that was used was not his and the driver who mentioned him is not affiliated to him.)

The only vehicles allowed to use the EDSA bus lane are LTFRB-authorized buses for the EDSA busway route; on-duty emergency vehicles; service vehicles performing their duties for the EDSA Busway Project; and vehicles used by the President, the Vice President, the Senate President, the Speaker of the House, and the Chief Justice.

Velasco, meanwhile, clarified that the House has not yet released any official plate bearing the number "8" to lawmakers in the current Congress.

Protocol plates, also known as low-numbered plates, are license plates assigned to vehicles used by the country's top officials. According to the Land Transportation Office, these are the protocol plates for the following officials:

• 1 - President
• 2 - Vice President
• 3 - Senate President
• 4 - Speaker of the House
• 5 - Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
• 6 - Cabinet Secretaries
• 7 - senators 
• 8 - congressmen
• 9 - associate justices of the Supreme Court
• 10 - presiding justice and other justices of the Court of Appeals
• 11 - Commission on Elections chairperson
• 12 - Cabinet Undersecretary
• 13 - Solicitor General
• 14 - Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Chief of the Philippine National Police
• 16 - Regional Trial Court judges
• 17 - first level courts, including metropolitan trial courts, municipal trial courts, municipal trial courts in cities, and Shari'ah circuit courts for the use of assistant city prosecutors, district prosecutors, and chief city prosecutors.

— BM, GMA Integrated News