By now, you may have already seen or heard about James Deakin’s viral post highlighting lapses in the Land Transportation Office’s (LTO) policies. While there was indeed a legitimate traffic violation on the part of Deakin’s son, the post resonated far beyond the incident itself. It exposed what millions of Filipinos experience whenever they deal with government agencies: processes that are often redundant, time-consuming, and, in many cases, costly. These long-standing issues help explain why fixers continue to thrive in the system.

Now, Transportation Secretary Giovanni Lopez has issued a new memo, basically suspending the confiscation of driver’s licenses altogether for erring drivers and changing the settlement time to 15 working days instead of 15 calendar days.

Lopez also said that the amended guidelines for settling traffic apprehension cases are “to afford both the government and the public sufficient time to resolve cases.”

“Ibig sabihin po nito, hindi kasama ‘yung mga holiday at long weekend sa bilang ng araw kapag magse-settle ng violation ‘yung driver,” said Lopez.

(This means that holidays and long weekends are not included in the number of days when the driver settles a violation.)

While the confiscation of driver’s licenses has been suspended, the LTO has been directed to immediately place a violator’s license under alert status. The agency is also instructed to strictly enforce the automatic suspension or revocation of the license if the driver fails to settle the case within 15 working days. This new memorandum circular takes effect immediately.