If you’ve been to the grocery, then you must be familiar with the barcoding system imposed by major grocery stores nationwide which allows them to easily identify the price and details of goods by simply scanning the barcode. Imagine the same system being used to monitor all the details of your vehicle, but this time making use of radio frequency instead of optical lights for identification.
“Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) will allow the Land Transportation Office to be quicker and more efficient in implementing the Motor Vehicle Registration System,” LTO 11 regional director officer-in-charge Atty. Jesus Joseph Zozobrado III said. This will also address the problems on colorum vehicles since it will now be easier to know all the details of the vehicle, including its ownership and registration, he added.
A forum on LTO’s RFID Project was held at the Grand Men Seng Hotel Friday to educate Dabawenyos on the RFID and its impending implementation.
“The Forum was not consultative, but only for information purposes since consultations have already been held,” LTO 11 chief of operations, Eleanor Calderon, said.
Calderon said mandatory tagging of all motor vehicles during the registration will be implemented starting January 1, 2010. Voluntary tagging, especially for government vehicles, are encouraged between November 3 to December 31 this year, she added.
Dabawenyos, and most Filipino for that matter, think of the RFID as something new and very technical. However, the RFID is already being widely used in the Philippines and abroad. The RFID is used in the SLEX toll payment system and the NLEX EC Tag. Simply put, it is the same system used in your ePassport.
South Africa already uses the RFID for vehicle registration, albeit the more expensive active RFID type. It is used in Mexico for vehicle identification and authentication, and in Singapore for traffic management, toll payment and EZ Payment Card.
This is the same system used by giant retail store Walmart in the United States for their retail system and inventory tracking. In short, the RFID is nothing new but has been in existence and use for years already.
Zozobrado said the RFID will help in the enforcement process and is an effective tool in land transport planning and traffic management. Experts believe that the RFID is a good deterrent to crimes such as carnapping, smuggling and illegal switching of plate numbers.
A representative from STRADCOM Manila, who reported on the basic aspects of the RFID, dispelled fears that the RFID application can be used by the government, specifically LTO, to spy on individuals. Apparently, the RFID is not capable of spying on the vehicle and its owners since it does not have a GPS capability. In fact, a cellphone is a potentially more invasive and threatening device than the RFID.
RFID Information
Once the vehicle has been tagged, the LTO IT System will then have information on the vehicle’s chassis number, plate number, MV type, color, make, year model, body type, franchise, route, owner’s name, last registration date and the engine number, among others.
The implementation of the RFID means an additional P350 payment on the part of motor vehicle users. This is, however, a one-time payment which comes with a warranty of 10 years. The fee already covers the entire system, including the tag, yearly maintenance, VAT and the government’s share in the revenue.
The LTO’s RFID fee is actually cheaper than the SLEX epass worth P1,800 which is good for three to five years, and the Philippine ePassport which costs P950 and valid for only five years.
STRADCOM assured the safety of the RFID and said it is impossible to replicate the RFID tags, unlike license plates and LTO stickers. And, unlike other items, it is also very impossible to pirate or duplicate the tags since each RFID tag in the world is assigned a unique ID by a controlling organization called the Electronic Product Code Global or EPC Global.
If you own a motor vehicle, whether a four-wheeler or a two-wheeled motorcycle (or even a 10-wheeler truck), expect to be tagged once you renew your registration with the LTO starting next year.
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