ABOUT 40 motorcycles that were found to have no proper documents and 103 motorcycles with illegally installed mufflers were impounded during an Oplan Sita operation conducted by the Mandaue City Police Office (MCPO) last Monday afternoon.
Senior Supt. Jonathan Cabal, MCPO director, led the destruction of the mufflers in front of the MCPO headquarters past 4 p.m. yesterday. A road roller truck was used in destroying the mufflers.
Cabal said the “One-Time Big-Time Motor Stop” operation was conducted in Barangays Tawason, Casili and Canduman.
“We’ve been having a rise of motornapping incidents. So since we are done with our election preparations, we are focusing in this type of criminality,” said Cabal.
He said it is the directive of Police Regional Office 7 Director Patrocinio Comendador Jr. to go after motorcycles that do not have registration and other documents.
For two hours last Monday, MCPO, with the help of the Highway Patrol Group 7, flagged down the motorcycles and impounded those who lacked documents, particularly driver’s license and registration, from 4 to 6 p.m.
Cabal believed there is a “big probability” that these vehicles will be used in criminal activities.
The police conducted the operations in the three barangays because these are adjacent to Barangay Talamban in Cebu City where MCPO had confiscated several carnapped motorcycles last January.
“Talamban is one of the areas that we are looking at because in the past months we were able to recover motorcycles in the barangay,” Cabal said.
Twelve of the 40 impounded motorcycles were released to the owners yesterday after they came to the MCPO and showed the documents for their motorcycles.
For the owners of the 28 remaining motorcycles, Cabal said they should be able to present documents before the motorcycles can be released back to them.
He said the impounded motorcycles will also be subjected to a macroetching test to determine if the chassis numbers were not tampered.
The “noisy” mufflers were also confiscated because installing these is a violation of Republic Act 4136 or the Land Transportation and Traffic Code, said Cabal.