Section 5Sec./Art. 5

All motor vehicles and other vehicles must be registered.

(a) No motor vehicle shall be used or operated on or upon any public highway of the Philippines unless the same is properly registered for the current year in accordance with the provisions of this Act.

(b) Any registration of motor vehicles not renewed on or before the date fixed for different classifications, as provided hereunder shall become delinquent and invalid:

1. For hire motor vehicles - on or before the last working day of February.

2. Privately-owned motor vehicles - from March one to the last working day of May.

3. All other motor vehicles - from June one to the last working day of June; except when the plates of such motor vehicles are returned to the Commission in Quezon City or to the Office of the Motor Vehicles Registrar in the provincial or city agency of the Commission on or before the last working day of December of the year of issue.

(c) Dealer's reports - The Commissioner of Land Transportation shall require dealers to furnish him with such information and reports concerning the sale, importation, manufacture, number of stocks, transfer or other transactions affecting motor vehicles as may be necessary for the effective enforcement of the provisions of this Act.

(d) Change of motor number prohibited. - No repair or change in the motor vehicle involving the exchange, elimination, effacing, or replacing of the original or registered serial or motor number as stamped or imprinted, shall be allowed, and any motor vehicle with a trace of having its motor number altered or tampered with shall be refused registration or re-registration, unless such is satisfactorily explained and approved by the Commissioner.

(e) Encumbrances of motor vehicles. - Mortgages, attachments, and other encumbrances of motor vehicles, in order to be valid, must be recorded in the Land Transportation Commission and must be properly recorded on the face of all outstanding copies of the certificates of registration of the vehicle concerned.

Cancellation or foreclosure of such mortgages, attachments, and other encumbrances shall likewise be recorded, and in the absence of such cancellation, no certificate of registration shall be issued without the corresponding notation of mortgage, attachment and/or other encumbrances.

Records of encumbrances of motor vehicles shall be kept by the Land Transportation Commission in chronological sequence and shall contain, among other things, the time, date and number of the entry in a "Book of Motor Vehicles" referring to the creation, cancellation or foreclosure of the aforesaid mortgages, attachments or to other encumbrances.

The Land Transportation Commission shall collect a fee of five pesos for every annotation of a mortgage, attachment and/or other encumbrances, or cancellation thereof.