There’s that age-old scenario where you get pulled over by an enforcer, get issued a ticket for the traffic violation that you committed, and have to set aside time to pay for said ticket at authorized payment centers.

That’s going to change soon, as the Land Transportation Office will be issuing its enforcers a new handheld electronic ticketing device, similar to those handheld point-of-sales (POS) machines that run Android and normally found at cashiers of retail shops.

This will be part of the agency’s electronic and contactless ticketing system called the Electronic Temporary Operator’s Permit. At the moment, it will allow enforcers to do things like check if the driver’s license is legitimate, and easily and instantly log the violation on the LTO’s database with accompanying information, along with a printed traffic violation receipt that can be paid at any LTO-accredited electronic payment centers.

But after the initial deployment plan, the agency plans to start a second phase of the program, which will allow motorists to pay for their violations on the spot. We hope that this will push through, as this can and will help minimize the inconvenience of setting aside time to pay for violations. More importantly, this will hopefully discourage corruption among traffic enforcers, and bribery among motorists.