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BMV to re-open today but with limited services only
The Department of Public Safety’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles will re-open today, Friday, but only to deal with registration work on cars that have been sold from dealerships.
DPS Commissioner James C. Deleon Guerrero disclosed yesterday that the first three days, starting today, are reserved for registration work on vehicles sold from dealerships because they don’t want to see long lines at BMV.
Deleon Guerrero said they are looking at probably on Wednesday next week for BMV to open to the general public.
Wednesday’s opening to the general public, however, will depend on how quickly they can move their registry servers over to the main DPS building as well as IT&E assisting the department in boosting the necessary speed of the DSL line at the facility.
“That would dictate how long we can register cars,” he said.
Deleon Guerrero is hopeful that if everything goes as planned, BMV can provide full vehicle registry and driver’s license processing by Wednesday.
With the closure of the BMV after Typhoon’s Soudelor’s devastation, members of the community with expired driver’s licenses and car registrations have been unable to update these documents.
The commissioner disclosed that there was a downed Commonwealth Utilities Corp. power pole in the middle of the BMV parking lot and a transformer with tangled wires was sitting in the lot.
He said the BMV registry servers are currently located at the local courts so they are trying to move those servers over to the main DPS building, where there is a 24-hour power supply.
He said their driver’s license system has always been housed at BMV from day one.
“So we should be able, for example, to issue driver’s licenses during regular working hours from 7:30am to 4:30pm. However, because it’s going to take some time for us to be able to get all the equipment out of the judicial building, we’re going to be in the initial things of this re-opening,” he said.
