ILOILO City – The vendors’ lack of discipline emerged as one of the central problems in the city’s public markets. During the second public hearing of the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) on the sorry state of markets, the installation of closed circuit television cameras was proposed to keep the market vendors in check.
For City Environment and Natural Resources Office chief Noel Hechanova, one of the resource persons yesterday, fixing the public markets should begin with restoring order in them starting with the vendors.
At the Iloilo Terminal Market for example, he said, some vendors were selling on alleys depriving customers of spaces to pass.
“We have to realign all stalls. Tagaan naton sang dalanon ang buying public,” said Hechanova.
He also said the terminal market’s drainage has become a dumpsite of vendors, especially the drainage in the wet section (fish and meat sections).
Councilor Joshua Alim suggested the installation of CCTV cameras and to specifically state in the vendors’ lease contracts that they have to keep their areas clean and orderly at all times.
“Ang concern ta is order and sanitation in public markets,” he stressed.
A violation of the lease contract would result to its cancellation or the penalization of the erring vendor, said Alim.
To complement the CCTV cameras, said Alim, there must also be a public address system in the markets through which the attention of erring vendors monitored through the cameras could be called.
The proposals got the nod of the president of the Iloilo Terminal Market Vendors Association, Barangay Captain Woody Deliarte of Barangay Kauswagan, City Proper.
“This would put everyone in the public markets on their toes,” said Deliarte.
The CCTV cameras would also discourage criminals from striking in public markets, he added.
“If we want cleanliness in our markets, first we must restore order in them,” said Hechanova. “Each vendor must be made accountable for the areas they occupy. Look at the Calle Real. We required business establishments to keep their respective areas clean, so the whole area is clean.”
Local Economic Enterprise Office head Ariel Castañeda, whose office oversees the operation of the public markets, was asked to prepare a budgetary plan regarding the installation of CCTVs in public markets so this could be included in the proposed city government budget for 2019 that the city council would be deliberating by October.
Hechanova also suggested that public markets have their own wastewater treatment plants and better public toilets.
Councilor Armand Parcon who pushed for the SP hearing lamented that the city’s public markets appeared to have been neglected. He pointed to, among others, the leaking roofs and poor drainage of the Iloilo Terminal Market.
Councilor Plaridel Nava said political will is needed to address these concerns.
“Nothing appeared to have changed in our public markets since 2010,” he lamented. “What we need is an iron hand…Damu man sang dongol sa sulod sang public markets.”
Nava said the private-public partnership arrangement to improve the public markets proposed during the administration of then mayor Jed Pat rick Mabilog could have been “the best solution.”
“Ti damo man reklamo. Damo rally,” said Nava./PN
