STRUGGLING The rice grinder and coconut milk extractor at this rented stall inside Tarlac City’s old public market have been idle on most days. For almost a year now, this vendor’s daily net sales have dropped from P30,000 to a little less than P1,500, causing her to suffer from depression. —TONETTE OREJAS
(Last of two parts)
TARLAC CITY — The consequence was heavy on vendors when the local government unit (LGU) of Tarlac City closed and fenced the Uptown public market on Oct. 16 last year due to water pollution and lack of business permit by its private operator.
Close to 500 stall renters of Paliparan Central Market Corp., the operator, pay more for stalls in the new RUA public market built by Romeo U. Aquino (RUA) Construction and Development Corp. Around 500 are believed to have stopped selling.
The 100 Paliparan tenants who refused to leave Uptown do business in dirty and risky conditions and an undetermined number of sidewalk vendors had been displaced.
Nine of 49 businesses have left the stalls of Baque Corp., which occupies two lots outside of areas operated by Paliparan.
Although Baque was not covered by orders from the Environmental Management Bureau and Pollution Adjudication Board, its stalls were fenced and the streets there closed to traffic. The LGU has not filed a case against Baque or issued it a notice of violation, city legal officer Joselito Castro confirmed. Baque, which has a Build-Operate-Transfer contract with the city government, has not sued either.
Of its 40 standing tenants, 80 percent are unable to pay leases on time.
Asked about the possibility of partially opening some roads for establishments not covered by the closure order, Castro said: “The mayor has asked the city engineer’s office to review the extent of the fenced area in order to minimize disruptions to other businesses not related to the closure order.”
Livelihood
Many of the 175 members of the Victory Uptown Market Vendors Association have not been able to get stalls at RUA, its president Henry Garcia complained. But the requirements are easy to get, an RUA employee said.
“Life was better during the COVID-19 pandemic because we got aid delivered to our homes. Now, our livelihood is being taken away from us,” Garcia said.
Before the closure, he said they rented stalls or sold their wares or produce in front of stalls, paying tickets for P20 to P50 daily either to Paliparan or the local government.
Mayor Maria Cristina Angeles suspected that some market leaders were being used by politicians to cast a “black eye” on her because after having eased the traffic and garbage problems of the city, her opponents had nothing else to criticize on her third and last term.
Paliparan administrator Ronald Asuncion said Garcia’s group was “not recognized by Paliparan.”
The so-called “palengke (market) war” is part of larger problems that surfaced after former Mayor Gelacio Manalang’s term.
The public market, RUA private market and Baque lots are within a 15-hectare property reclaimed by the Department of Public Works and Highways and Public Estates Authority in 1990 from the Tarlac River across the Ninoy Aquino Boulevard in Barangay Poblacion.
Managing assets
Manalang took out loans that reached P550 million since 2006 to develop the reclaimed land and fund the construction of the public market, which was eventually leased to Paliparan in 2014. In late 2021, the Tarlac provincial government began asserting ownership over the reclaimed property. The matter is pending with the Philippine Reclamation Authority, a letter showed.
Angeles appeared vigilant in managing local government assets. She regulated Paliparan as early as 2017, approving its lease agreement but subjecting it to conditions, including in the selection of qualified vendors, awarding of stalls and provision for waste disposal treatment facility, a letter to Paliparan president Nelson Ching showed.
Vendors are not the only ones incurring losses; the LGU has stopped receiving P1 million monthly as rent.
Asuncion explained: “Before we were closed by the city, we were on time in paying monthly rentals of P1 million. Our last payment was Nov. 5, 2022. After that we no longer have the capacity to pay since our tenants are gradually leaving their stalls.”
He claimed that Paliparan’s sewage treatment plant (STP) had been “operational.”
“We cannot test the efficacy of the STP without wastewater coming from the drainage canal,” he said.
On the other hand, Baque has paid its annual rental of P500,000 for 2022. It also obtained a supplemental agreement for 15 years.
“Palengke ni mayora (The mayor’s market)” was how a tenant referred to RUA private market. Angeles, however, said she had no business interest in the venture.
Castro said a slander complaint had been filed against a market leader who alleged the mayor was part of RUA. The mayor’s name does not appear as an incorporator in RUA’s general information sheets submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission in March.
Uptown tenants who moved to RUA negotiate straight with the firm about lease details.
“My only request to RUA was for it to follow the lease rates in the market code,” Angeles said.
The LGU regulation extended to the Downtown public market. After a 2019 lease contract was signed with the city government, Puregold Price Club directly paid a monthly rental of P810,337.50 for the use of 3,918 square meters in 25 years. The new contract ended three years of the LGU receiving only P70,000 from a politician who leased the same property to Puregold at P700,000 monthly, according to Castro.
Angeles said the market issue would be the “last battle” she would resolve before finishing her final term.
“This issue is easy to resolve if no politician will interfere. But when there are politicians behind these vendors, those who will provoke them, then we are in for a fight. It’s now more of a political issue,” she said, without naming anyone.