RESEARCH STATUSEvery figure on this site is at research status. No reviewer has signed one off, and the national schedule was transcribed by eye from page scans.

Seat belts

The order fixes a flat figure for each offence. The Act behind it does something different: it gives a floor and a ceiling for each, and leaves the choice to whoever writes the order. Reading them side by side shows what was chosen, every time.

[ PHOTO ]int-seatbelt4:3

The order inside the Act

What was chosen, and what could have been

The middle two columns are the Act's own bounds for that rung. The first is what the order fixed.

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Driver seat-belt penalties, against the statutory range
Offence	The order fixes	Act — not less than	Act — not more than	Also
First offence	₱1,000	₱100	₱1,000	—
Second offence	₱2,000	₱200	₱2,000	—
Third offence	₱5,000	₱500	₱5,000	1-week licence suspension from payment of fine, for the third and each succeeding offence

SourceSCAN · READ BY EYEJoint Administrative Order No. 2014-01 (DOTC + LTO + LTFRB, 3 June 2014), item I.g.1 · page 5 of the scanIn force 3 June 2014. That is the date stamped on the order’s own face. The order does not state when it commenced: it says only that it takes effect fifteen days after publication in two newspapers and a filing with the national administrative register, and neither of those records is in this site’s corpus. So the real start date is later than the date above by an unknown margin. The order has never been amended.Source last read 7 August 2026 — a read date, not a sign-off.

The pattern

The order took the maximum every time

Every figure the order fixes is the top of the Act’s own range for that rung. That is an administrative election, not a restatement of the statute — and it means the number could lawfully have been the floor instead. A payload shipping only the order’s figures would delete both facts.

Public utility vehicles

A second limb, and the same election

For a public utility vehicle the duty is to require passengers to belt up and to post the signage saying so — and the order fixes one flat figure for it.

The order fixes ₱3,000for every violation. The Act’s own range for this limb runs from ₱300 to ₱3,000 — and again the order took the top of it.

Both the driver and the operator are liable for that fine, for every violation. It is not split between them.

SourceSCAN · READ BY EYEJoint Administrative Order No. 2014-01 (DOTC + LTO + LTFRB, 3 June 2014), item I.g.2 · page 5 of the scanIn force 3 June 2014. That is the date stamped on the order’s own face. The order does not state when it commenced: it says only that it takes effect fifteen days after publication in two newspapers and a filing with the national administrative register, and neither of those records is in this site’s corpus. So the real start date is later than the date above by an unknown margin. The order has never been amended.Source last read 7 August 2026 — a read date, not a sign-off.

The stale age

Two instruments, two front-seat ages

The order folds a front-seat child rule into this item. A later statute moved that age. Both are below, each with its own citation, and this site does not pick one.

STALEpre-2019 amendment

This includes allowing a child 6 years old and below to be seated on the front passenger seat.

Joint Administrative Order No. 2014-01 (DOTC + LTO + LTFRB, 3 June 2014), item I.g.1

IN FORCE NOWThe later statute

No child twelve (12) years and below of age shall be allowed to sit in a front seat of a motor vehicle with a running engine or while such child is being transported on any road, street or highway, unless the child meets the height requirement set forth in Section 4 of this Act and is properly secured using the regular seat belt in the front seat.

The 2019 child-safety statute states the bar in the sentence above and amends the seat-belt Act's front-seat rule to match. The 2014 order predates that amendment and was never updated, so the sentence beside this one is what the order still says — and the order is what most enforcement reads from.

STATUTERA 11229 (Child Safety in Motor Vehicles Act, 2019), §5RA 11229 (Child Safety in Motor Vehicles Act, 2019), §17 — the amending clause

The child-restraint duty itself, its height exception and its own two penalty ladders are on the child car seat page.