LTO handout photo

The Land Transportation Office (LTO) on Friday said it is considering the use of QR codes for legitimate ambulances to make it easier for traffic enforcers to distinguish them from the rising number of "colorum" ambulances on the roads. 

LTO Director for Law Enforcement Service Francis Ray Almora said the LTO will have to work with the Department of Health (DOH) on the initiative since it is the agency in charge of the licensing of ambulances.

 “Maglagay sila ng QR code for us, for all the other law enforcement officers… Makikita on the ground kung ito nga ay licensed to operate, did this unit pass through the DOH assessment,” Almora told ABS-CBN News at the sidelines of a forum with other stakeholders.

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According to Almora, the LTO has been seeing an excessive amount of vehicles marked as ambulances but he said “they violate everything in the land transportation rules and regulations.” 

“Under the land transportation laws, ambulances should only have the blue lights. The red, white and blue are for enforcement. But why is it that all these ambulances have these red, white and blue (blinkers)?” he said. 

“Even if there’s no patient, they are using their blinkers. But when we check, they say ‘we are on our way to get a patient’. So all of these are challenges that the law enforcement are met with on the road,” added Almora. 

During the same forum, the Department of Transportation Command and Control Operation Center (DOTr-COCC) said it has also apprehended many colorum ambulances, including those that illegally pass through the EDSA bus lane and those that are being used for personal purposes. 

“We have apprehended one ambulance wherein instead of equipment inside the supposed ambulance, what are inside are passengers, individuals being transported from one area to another area. We interviewed the driver and he could not even prove that he is a driver,” said DOTr-COCC Chief Charlie Del Rosario.

“These are not just embarrassing but this is actually threatening the very core of road safety because they are using blinkers, sirens under the guise of an emergency,” he added.

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A representative from the DOH, health physicist Alfonso Favis, has vowed to work with the relevant agencies to address the issue. 

Favis also reminded the public that patient transport vehicles are different from ambulances and therefore do not have the same privileges such as blinkers and sirens. 

“Yung ambulance is supposed to respond to emergency cases so yung purpose talaga is to save lives. Yung patient transport vehicle, kaya hindi namin nililisensyahan, it only needs to be registered, kasi non-emergency cases yan. Like kunyari, di kayang pumunta (ng pasyente) sa dialysis center, tutulungan ng patient transport vehicle,” he explained. 

Favis said the DOH may give local government units a deadline to comply with their guidelines, given that some of the patient transport vehicles and ambulances in question are the ones deployed by barangays and LGUs. 

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Almora said the LTO will also coordinate with the DILG for “uniform implementation nationwide.”

 “Most of these violators are also government vehicles so we do some intensive information campaign,” he said.