Vendors in the new Mandaue public market enjoy higher sales after a daily crackdown on sidewalk and ambulant vendors in the old Mandaue public market.
“It must have helped the vendors in the new Mandaue City public market,” said lawyer James Abadia, Mandaue City Administrator.
If the campaign isn’t done, he said, other marketgoers would no longer go to the new market.
“We pity the old market vendors but the city has to put things in order.”
Abadia said the “city has to favor and protect the interest of the stall holders because they are the ones paying the taxes.”
He said most of the apprehended ambulant and sidewalk vendors were from other towns who sell their merchandise in Mandaue.
City Hall is encouraging them to form a cooperative or an association so they can be part of the planned “Delicacy Center” that would replace the the old Mandaue market and the “Bagsakan Center” in barangay Ibaba-Estancia.
Abadia said apprehensions won’t stop because the city government wants to clear the city center of sidewalk and ambulant vendors, and improve and repair drainage systems.
He said roads will be paved and ordinances will be strictly enforced here as the pilot area of the “My Mandaue, My Home, My City” project.
This project aims to preserve the City Hall Complex.
Unlike the new market in Talisay City in south Cebu, the new Mandaue City Public Market was opened without violent resistance from old vendors last Jan. 8, 2012. Mandaue City Mayor Jnas Cortes led the inauguration. CORRESPONDENT NORMAN V. MENDOZA