What are the issues with Cebu and CDO registered cars in Manila?

**gearhead** · July 20th, 2008 11:46 AM

Someone told me that when you get a car that has Cebu or CDO plates they are flagged down in Metro Manila by the cops. Are there any issues with getting a car with plates from certain cities?

What plates are in question? Like do they start with a certain Letter?

Also do cops ask tong from drivers of cars with plates like these or check the LTO reg?

Anyone know more about this?

**altec** · July 20th, 2008 12:09 PM

they are targetting the surplus, imported, cars that were registered outside of luzon. They know the favorite registration of these units are cebu, cdo, and even somewhere in zamboanga. These are plates beginning with G/Y for cebu, L for CDO, and J for Zamboanga. They don't bother cars that are obviously local units.

**gearhead** · July 20th, 2008 01:03 PM

Where do B plates come from?

**alwayz_yummy** · July 20th, 2008 02:16 PM

b- cagayan--port irene

**ChevyChaser** · July 20th, 2008 10:39 PM

Originally Posted by gearhead

Someone told me that when you get a car that has Cebu or CDO plates they are flagged down in Metro Manila by the cops. Are there any issues with getting a car with plates from certain cities?

What plates are in question? Like do they start with a certain Letter?

Also do cops ask tong from drivers of cars with plates like these or check the LTO reg?

Anyone know more about this?

No particular letter prefix is in question here. Like your plate could start with "R" then somebody could get interested in it coz they know it's from out of town.

I think, or so, the LTO will issue a certain letter group for each locality every 4 years. Like in Manila, we are now grouped with the letter "Z". in 2004, we were grouped with "X" and years back with "U", "W" etc,etc.
These letter will tell you exactly where the car was registered: NCR, Region 1, Region 2 and so and so forth.
Just by looking at the plate number of a vehicle cops, MMDAs, LTO Flying Squads, MAPSA and the like will know if you're from oout of town.

Since there have been many cases of car-napped vehicles in Manila and brought out to certain provinces to be re-sold or chopped up, it is obvious that these guys will check on the legitimacy of your documents.

But we also cannot discount that cars with out of town plates are just plain "MA-INIT SA MATA" of the authorities.

In the 1970s, anybody seen riding a HONDA 1500cc or a KAWASAKI 1000cc GSR was flagged down and the docs checked. Now its out-of -town cars.

**shadow** · July 21st, 2008 08:44 AM

Originally Posted by gearhead

Where do B plates come from?

Region 2...

**gearhead** · July 21st, 2008 11:24 AM

Originally Posted by shadow

Region 2...

So cars with plates from here may get flagged down as well?

**Walter** · July 22nd, 2008 05:17 AM

Originally Posted by altec

they are targetting the surplus, imported, cars that were registered outside of luzon. They know the favorite registration of these units are cebu, cdo, and even somewhere in zamboanga. These are plates beginning with G/Y for cebu, L for CDO, and J for Zamboanga. They don't bother cars that are obviously local units.

Cagayan plates start with "K", "L" is Davao plates.

**Walter** · July 22nd, 2008 05:24 AM

Originally Posted by gearhead

Where do B plates come from?

Plate numbers are assigned by region, i.e. "A" for region 1, "B" for region 2 and so on. "S" reserved for government service vehicles, so "S" plates should be red colored. The region that uses up their assign letter, uses the next letter available, hence NCR gets to use up most of the letters. It is curious why "Y" is being used in Cebu since they have not used up "G". "R" is being used for Subic imports for some reason also. Maybe so they can easily spot the import/surplus vehicles from Subic & Cebu.

**ChevyChaser** · July 22nd, 2008 05:39 AM

Originally Posted by gearhead

So cars with plates from here may get flagged down as well?

There are many reasons why a car is flagged down. Traffic violations, "Color Coding Violations" ( which in eventuallity is not a traffic violation, its an Ordinance), The car may be similar in color, make & model, as well as any identifying marks such as stickers, decals to one that has been reported as carnapped. Also, the plate just looked interesting to a BUWAYA sa DAAN.

The only defence we have is that if we intend to use out-of town plates, then as soon as the car gets to where you intend to use it is to have it the registration transferred to that area. i.e Manila to Cebu or Cebu to CDO. Then u have proof that the car was originally registered in let's say Cebu then transferred to Manila.
Medyo hassle ang process pero it works.