Almora new LTO-CAR head; Urbanozo, LTFRB; DOTr to stop operations

By Pigeon Lobien

BAGUIO CITY – The assumption of offices of Francis Ray Almora and lawyer Laird Dionel Urbanozo to the Land Transportation Office (LTO) and Land Transportation Franchising Regulatory Board (LTFRB), respectively on Thursday formally saw elevation of the agencies into regional offices not only in the Cordillera Administrative Region but also in the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao in CARAGA.

Almora, former director of the Law Enforcement Office at the LTO Central office in Metro Manila, will now be the acting director of LTO Cordillera regional office independent of the Dept. of Transportation (DOTr).

Almora and Urbanozo took over the post vacated by Robert Allan Santiago, recently the officer-in-charge assistant regional director of the DOTr-Cordillera, with Almora taking over the LTO and Urbanozo, the LTFRB.

“I would like to enjoin all so we can work to have an efficient working (regional) office,” Almora said during the turnover ceremony, where he received the office’s standard logo from Santiago after his oath of office was administered. Urbanozo, however, failed to join the ceremony, where he should have been handed the office’s logo.

Almora will directly report to the LTO central office, unlike in the old set up where the LTO-Cordillera reports directly to the DOTr-Cordillera regional director.

LTO-Cordillera assistant regional director Jennilyn Avelino, in her welcome remarks during the event, said the creation of the LTO and LTFRB in the Cordillera and CARAGA, two administrative regions created by Executive Order 220 in 1987, came about when DOTr Secretary Arthur Tugade signed Department Order 2018-003.

She said while the LTO exists here and in CARAGA, they are unlike the other offices in the other regions and were under the defunct DOTC as mandated by EOs 125, 125-A and 226, all signed in 1987 by late President Corazon Aquino.

In 2002, the LTFRB became an agency under the DOTC and a manager was appointed who is equal to an assistant director.

With Tugade’s order taking effect, the DOTr practically ceased to exist in both regions with the personnel moved either to the LTO or the LTFRB-Cordillera.

“The corresponding personnel, records, applicable funds and appropriations, equipment property and other administrative matters in the DOTr-CAR and DOTr Caraga that are kept, held possessed or otherwise under the control or administration of the respective units of the above mentioned regional offices performing functions pertaining to the LTO and LTFRB, shall be transferred and placed under the control and/or administration LTO-CAR, LTFRB-CAR, LTO-CARAGA and LTFRB-CARAGA,” Tugade’s order said.

The order also named a regional director as head of said offices with the assistant regional director to help the former run the office.

Tugade also ordered the DOTr to coordinate with the two agencies for the smooth turnover.

LTFRB chairman Martin Delgra, meanwhile, said the two offices will work together “as far and as fast in pushing the modernization program of public transport.”

Prior to the turnover, LTO chief, Assistant Secretary Edgar Galvante and Assistant Regional Director of LTO-CAR Jennilyn Avelino opened an LTO office at the Porta Vaga Mall on Session road to help improve agency's services. (PNA)