BY PRINCE GOLEZ
Manila Reporter
MANILA – Corruption should not be made an excuse to transfer to private hands the delivery of basic services.
So said Negrense congressman Neri Colmenares as he vowed to lead a congressional inquiry on the alleged anomalies at the Iloilo Central Market and on the plan to transfer the market’s management to a private entity.
He told Panay News he will convince the House leadership to hold the investigation in Iloilo City.
“We are hoping to have the hearings held during the break. We’ll not wait for President Benigno Aquino III’s State of the Nation Address,” said Colmenares, representative of Bayan Muna party-list.
He will file a resolution calling for the congressional probe “next week.”
Congress will resume its session on July 28 yet.
During a meeting with central market vendors on Wednesday, Colmenares was told that up to five public markets in Iloilo City will be “privatized” allegedly to “increase the local government’s income.”
The market vendors’ request for a congressional inquiry is “meritorious,” said Colmenares.
“The government should not relinquish its job to the private sector,” he stressed, adding that privatizing public markets will lead to increases in prices of basic goods and cripple small businesses.
He cited the country’s experience in the privatization of electricity and fuel.
“These have led to misery through monopoly of big business,” Colmenares said.
There are seven public markets in Iloilo City – two in the City Proper (central market and terminal market), two in Jaro district and one each in La Paz, Mandurriao and Arevalo districts.
Councilor Rodel Fullon Agado, chairman of the Sangguniang Panlungsod’s committee on markets and slaughterhouse, told the vendors during a meeting last month that payments they made to the city government were being pocketed by thieves.
Asked if the market vendors have disclosed to him the names of city government functionaries who supposedly pocketed collections from the central market, Colmenares said their identities will be revealed during the congressional investigation.
“That’s what we want to find out. We will ask the city government and vendors concerned kung saan napunta (ang collections). We will also ask the Commission on Audit if it audited the collections,” he said.
The city government’s Central Business District (CBD) Revitalization Project involves handing over to private hands the management of the central market.
Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog, however, refused to call it an outright privatization. The city government will retain ownership of the market, he insisted.
Vendors fear they would be displaced or that the stall rentals would skyrocket.
The city government said the project aims to make the central market financially viable, an admission that it has failed to manage it well./PN
