ILOILO City – At the Iloilo Terminal Market, popularly known as “Super”, fish, vegetables and meat are not the only commodities being sold. Commercial sex is apparently lucrative there, too, according to Mayor Jerry Treñas.
Portions of the market are being used as sex den, he revealed.
“I already issued an order to dismantle illegal structures there related to the flesh trade,” Treñas told Panay News.
The second floor of the public market is being utilized by pimps, disclosed Iloilo City Task Force on Morals and Values Formation chief Nestor Canong.
Spaces are rented out for P200 and most of the prostituted persons there are minors, both girls and boys, he told Treñas.
“How can this thing happen,” an aghast Treñas asked, pointing out that policemen and some city government personnel were tasked to secure the market.
He described the situation as “very alarming.”
“This will not happen again, I assure you. I apologize to the Ilonggos for the lapses of our personnel,” said Treñas.
The Local Economic Enterprise Office of the city government is the office overseeing the operation of all public markets in Iloilo City.
Treñas plans to move displaced sidewalk vendors to vacant spaces in all public markets.
Vendors here were given seven days beginning Tuesday (Sept. 3) to voluntarily leave the sidewalks or the city government’s demolition teams would be dismantling their structures.
The clearing of sidewalks and roads ordered by President Rodrigo Duterte is seen to dislocate an estimated 1,500 vendors here.
Around 600 of these sidewalk vendors could be found around the Iloilo Terminal Market, Iloilo Central Market and downtown streets.
OTHER IRREGULARITIES
The utilization of “Super” as a sex den is just one of several alleged irregularities in the biggest public market in Iloilo City.
Just this April, then mayor Jose Espinosa III revealed that “Super” fish vendors complained to him they were being forced to cough up P50 for using tables, P10 for the trapal and P15 for the lights.
Other than the arkabala (between P10 to P20) that the city government collects, the market vendors had nothing else to pay, stressed Espinosa.
“Everything is free except for the arkabala. Kon indi legal nga panukot indi gid kamo mag bayad,” he said.
Espinosa also exposed what he called as “flying electricity connections” at the market, particularly at the fish section. The electric bulbs of various fish stalls were connected to a private electricity meter and vendors were each made to pay P15 for their use.
“Ang connection sang mga suga indi iya sang market…sin-o na sya nga persona ang nagapanukot? May linya ang syudad, natingala ko nga nag-inamo ina,” said Espinosa.
He also noted the sprouting of illegal structures outside the market. He wondered who set them up and who were making money from vendors using these.
“Vendors inside the market have no sales because buyers are being cornered by those vending outside,” said Espinosa.
Before bowing out of office in June, Espinosa said it was now up to the incoming Treñas administration to act on the anomalies uncovered at the Iloilo Terminal Market.
Espinosa said he would have wanted to pursue solutions but in deference to Treñas, “Whatever their procedures, kun paano ang pagsolbar sang problema, I will leave it to them.”/PN
