Mandaue offers ‘amnesty’ to owners of vehicles impounded in the last 5 yrs

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MANDAUE CITY, Cebu – The Mandaue City government is giving vehicle owners a chance to redeem their impounded units at a minimal cost starting on Monday, May 3.

Those covered by the reduced storage fees are vehicles that were impounded from 2015 to 2021.

Mandaue City’s amnesty ordinance authored by Councilor Jimmy Lumapas is valid only for a period of one month, from May 3 to June 3, 2021.

It seeks to grant “relief and amnesty” from the payment of the accumulated storage fees, that would range from P100 to P500 per day, to owners of impounded vehicles.

Under the ordinance, owners of vehicles that were impounded in 2020 will only be required to pay half of the supposed storage fees due to the city.  This also done in consideration of the financial difficulties that resulted from the pandemic.

Owners, whose vehicles were impounded in 2018 and 2019, can avail of a 20 percent discount while owners of vehicles impound from 2015 to 2017 will get a 30 percent discount.

However, Lumapas’ ordinance said that the payment of the discounted storage fee cannot be considered as a waiver for the payment of fines, surcharges and other fees for the violations committed by the vehicle owner as reflected on the citation ticket.

“The payment of the entire amount shall be paid in full to the City Treasurer’s Office before an impounded vehicle shall be released by TEAM,” reads the ordinance which the Mandaue City Council passed on March 17 and which Mayor Jonas Cortes signed on April 12.

It says that vehicles left unclaimed after June 3 will be considered as “abandoned” and will already be subjected to public auction or donated to the barangays or government offices for use as service vehicle.

Amnesty

To avail of the discount, vehicle owners are advised to bring their citations tickets, OR/CR, and driver’s license to the office of the Traffic Enforcement Agency of Mandaue (TEAM) for the processing of their application.

City officials are hopeful that the amnesty offer will help decongest the city’s impounding area.

In his ordinance, Lumapas said the city’s impounding area has already reached its full capacity, thus the need for the city government to look for a new place where they can store impounded and unclaimed vehicles.

“The aggressive efforts of the Traffic Enforcement Agency of Mandaue (TEAM) in trying to curtail unregistered and undocumented vehicles, accompanied by vehicles that remain unclaimed and abandoned over the passage of time, resulted to a full storage in the City’s impounding area,” it says.

During their February 18 meeting, members of the Mandaue City Traffic Board agreed to grant amnesty to owners of vehicles that were impounded in the last five years.

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