Over 1,400 impounded vehicles in Mandaue set to be released

CREEPY. The Mandaue City impounding area continues to be one of the scariest places to be in if you’re alone…at night. CDN Digital photo | Mary Rose Sagarino

MANDAUE CITY, Cebu – More than 1,400 impounded vehicles here will be released as soon as an ordinance that aims to decongest the city’s impounding lot will be approved.

The Mandaue City Council, on Monday, Feb. 24 passed on first reading, a bill that will grant amnesty to several cars in the impounding area in the old public market in Barangay Centro.

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The proposal, titled An Ordinance Granting Relief and/or Amnesty to All Declared Owners of Impounded Vehicles from Paying the Accumulated Storage Fees, has also been forwarded to the Committee on Laws and Ordinances for review.

It will be returned to the council for a second and third reading.

Once approved on final reading, the Traffic Enforcement Agency of Mandaue (Team) expects the amnesty ordinance to be implemented this April.

Under the amnesty, vehicle owners will only need to pay a P1,000 storage fee.

Without the amnesty, the daily storage charge for motorcycles and tricycles is P100, while owners of four-wheeled vehicles are charged P500 per day.

According to Team, most of the cars qualified under its amnesty program are those impounded between 2019 and 2023.

In 2023, 343 vehicles were impounded; 243 in 2022; 221 in 2021; 292 in 2020; and 329 in 2019.

However, vehicles impounded from January 2024 onward are excluded from the program. The Mandaue City Traffic Board has yet to serve the penalties upon these cars.

However, City Councilor Jimmy Lumapas, chairman of the Committee on Transportation, clarified that owners must still settle their traffic violations. / mme