You know how they say car ownership isn’t a right, and that it’s a privilege? Nowhere in the world is this sentiment truer than in Singapore, where certificates of entitlement (COE) for automobiles make vehicle ownership much more expensive than in other countries.
How much more expensive? Well, the results of the latest round of COE bidding—yes, motorists bid for these over there—are in, and the figures will make your jaw drop.
For the latest round of bidding, 2,000 COEs were opened up and a total of 3,103 bids were placed. The highest bid was a whopping SGD100,697 (over P3.85 million) for a Category E COE (all vehicles except motorcycles). This is a new record.
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The second most expensive bid for this round was SGD100,684 (again, over P3.85 million) for a Category B COE, which applies to any vehicle with an engine displacement above 1.6 liters. The highest bid for a motorcycle COE (Category D) ended up being SGD10,000 (P382,000), while it was SGD73,801 (P2.82 million) for a Category A COE (engine displacements below 1.6 liters). You can check out the full COE bidding results over the past year here.
And to think the highest category E COE a year ago was SGD61,112 (P2.3 million). Frankly, though, this all pales in comparison to some of the stuff going on in the Middle East.
Okay, chances are some of you guys think these COE rates are absurd—but this setup appears to be working out incredibly well over in Singapore. Besides, it’s not like people over there need cars to get around, on account of the country’s public transportation system being one of the best in the region.
So, do you think a process like this would work in the Philippine setting?
