Pay parking ban to affect 60 CCTO personnel

SOME 60 personnel of the Cebu City Transportation Office (CCTO) will be affected by the directive of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to ban pay parking in the city.

Andres Bayarcal, CCTO operations chief, assured that his office will do its best so that these personnel, a mix of casual and job order workers, will not lose their jobs.

He plans to assign them new tasks like apprehending jaywalkers.

To address the lack of parking spaces in the downtown and uptown areas, the Cebu City Government designated certain roads as pay parking zones for a certain period of time.

It charges P20 per vehicle.

Bayarcal clarified that the implementation of the DILG memorandum will have minimal effect on the City’s income.

He said the P20 payment only exists “for the sake of regulation.”

“The City is not dependent on the payment coming from pay parking. The payment is only there to regulate it (pay parking),” he said.

City Councilor Raymond Alvin Garcia, committee on budget and finance chairman, echoed Bayarcal’s sentiment, but he emphasized that every income the City earns matters.

“Definitely it will affect the City, but only minimal,” he said, adding that the City’s income from pay parking goes to general funds.

He said the City hired a private firm to help collect parking fees.

Bayarcal said the CCTO personnel are deployed in pay parking zones in the uptown area like near Robinsons Fuente, Chong Hua Hospital and Cebu Doctors’ University Hospital. The private firm is in charge of collecting parking fees in the downtown area like on Plaridel St., Gonzales St., Manalili St., P. Burgos St. and Magallanes St., among others.

Bayarcal said the City only gets 50 percent of what the private firm collects.

On Nov. 20, 2019, DILG Secretary Eduardo Año issued Memorandum Circular 2019-193 to governors, mayors, vice mayors, barangay captains, DILG regional directors and heads of government agencies to stop using public roadsides as parking spaces in line with the presidential mandate to clear public roads of obstructions.

On Jan. 3, 2020, Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella vowed to follow the mandate.

He said the city ordinance providing for the regulation of pay parking will be reviewed, amended or repealed.

Garcia, who is also the chairman of the committee on laws, said the amendment will have to be studied carefully. (JJL)

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