The Land Transportation Office (LTO) will prioritize providing the remaining 35,000 plastic license cards to departing overseas Filipino workers (OFW) who will work as drivers in other countries, LTO officer-in-charge Hector Villacorta said Thursday.

In a “Laging Handa” briefing, Villacorta said paper driver licenses might not be accepted in other countries.

“For now we are going to focus on the urgent issues. The two problems are the lack of license cards and plates for vehicles. We only have 53,000 license cards left. The solution is to extend the validity of the existing licenses up to October 31. And as I said, we will prioritize providing license cards to the migrant workers,” Villacorta said.

“Since others will are just staying in the Philippines, we are going to tell the police officers to recognize the expired license cards up to October 31,” he added.

He said President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. and Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista ordered a faster production of license cards and plate numbers.

“The President and Secretary Bautista want faster production of license cards and plate numbers. We are talking with the government and with private sector so that the bidding and deliver of products could be fast-tracked,” he said.

Villacorta replaced LTO Chief Jay Tugade who resigned from his post on May 22, citing differences with the Department of Transportation (DoTr).

He is also Assistant Secretary for Communications of the DoTr. Jaspearl Tan/DMS