CEBU City Mayor Tomas Osmeña clarified that no vehicle is exempted from the implementation of the policy on clamping illegally-parked vehicles after two ambulances were clamped outside a private hospital by the traffic group last Wednesday.
In his news conference yesterday, Osmeña made clear that only those emergency vehicles that attend to actual emergencies are exempted from traffic rules.
The Cebu City Transportation Office (CCTO) clamped the two ambulances outside the Cebu Doctors’ University Hospital.
Osmeña said he will not exempt the hospital since its owner has been using its parking lot to park his luxury cars.
“You look at the Lamborghini of Dr. Larrazabal, it’s all parked inside while the ambulance is outside. All luxury cars are inside so the ambulances are outside because they think they can do away with it, but no,” he said.
One of the two ambulances is owned by the hospital, but the other belongs to the Emergency Response Unit Foundation (Eruf).
Facebook user Mikey Larrazabal posted a photo of one of the clamped ambulances and accused the traffic group of being inconsiderate.
Another Facebook user, Laurence Po Chua, posted similar photos, accusing CCTO personnel of not using their brains after clamping the two ambulances.
These posts drew criticisms against Osmeña and CCTO.
In a statement, Cebu Doctors’ said the matter has been settled. It assured its clients, patients and the public that it understands the traffic situation.
Since January, hospital management said, they’ve provided parking spaces for ambulances, company vehicles and employees’ vehicles behind Osmeña Blvd., and even acquired additional property near the hospital and converted it into a parking space.
“All these efforts done just to provide our patients and clients a better healing environment. Also, be assured that we will continue to deliver compassionate, quality and innovative healthcare to Cebu and the rest of the region,” the hospital said.
During his regular news conference yesterday, Osmeña confirmed that he gave the go-signal to CCTO to clamp the two ambulances.
“I said clamp it. Besides, Cebu Doc doesn’t pay taxes,” he said.
Cebu Doctors had earned the ire of Osmeña after it refused to pay business tax.
In 2007, Cebu Doctors’ and five other hospitals filed a case against the City and asked the court to stop the local government from collecting business taxes from them. The hospitals said they are exempted because they are non-stock, non-profit establishments.
In a separate interview, CCTO operations chief Francisco Ouano said the ambulances were illegally parked and were left unattended when the CCTO men arrived in the area.
He said they warned the driver and the hospital guard to move the ambulances.
“One of the two ambulances was there for more than an hour already and was not attending to (an) emergency that’s why we decided to clamp it,” he said.
Ouano said they released Eruf’s ambulance after learning that its driver, who was also the paramedic, was attending to a patient in the emergency room.
He said they did not collect any fine from Eruf, but Cebu Doctors’ was fined P1,000 for illegal parking.