Vendors stand ground vs planned Cavite market shutdown

More than a hundred vendors at the Trece Martires City public market annex building stood their ground against the city government?s plan to close down the marketplace despite an ongoing court case.

Last week, members of the city mayor’s civil security unit (CSU) and the city government’s licensing office twice attempted to padlock the market stalls and implement the closure order the city government issued in July, said Merly Valguna, president of Trece Martires City Market Annex Association.

The commotion on the morning of Sept. 4 would have resulted in chaos had city  police not intervened and asked a group of about 50 CSU  personnel to stand down, said city police chief Supt. Gerry Umayao.

CSU personnel, however, returned predawn on Friday and locked down most of the stalls and placed barbed wire and plywood to close off the  entrance to the market.

“Just a few of us were left open, around 20 stalls in the fish and vegetable sections,” Valguna said in a phone interview on Saturday.

The vendors’ association had filed on June 23 a civil case against Trece Martires City Mayor Melandres de Sagun and real estate developer YIC Group of Companies Inc. and property holdings firm Citisquare Property Management Inc., both holding office in Pasay City, that claimed rights over the market property.

In a complaint filed in the city’s Regional Trial Court Branch 23, the vendors argued that the plan to shut down the market was illegal since they have the rights to lease the market for a period of 25 years. The petition also prayed that the city government resume the issuance of mayor’s and business permits to the vendors, which was stopped early in January.

The single-story market was built on a 2,597-square-meter property through a build-operate-transfer scheme between then Mayor Melencio de Sagun Jr., the incumbent mayor’s father, and private developer Prestonburg Development Corp. on May 30, 2002.

To recover its construction costs, Prestonburg sold to 119 vendors the rights to lease the market for 25 years, or supposedly until June 30, 2027.

On Aug. 29, 2003, Prestonburg turned over the market to the city government, which took over its management for the next ten years.

But in March 2013, the city government through a public notice announced a “change of management” and that all rental payments shall be handled by YIC Group of Companies. The company also circulated a draft contract, which the vendors refused to sign since it reduces the lease period to a year and increases stall rental fees.

In January this year, the city government stopped accepting rentals from the vendors and refused to issue them business permits.

“In the last couple of weeks beginning May…  the atmosphere was rife with rumors that [the Trece Martires City] public market annex building will be torn down to give way to the construction of a big mall and the defendant City Government and the Hon. Mayor Melandres G. De Sagun [are] hell-bent in seeing to it that it is done and that there is nothing the plaintiff can do to obstruct the way of progress,” read the complaint signed by Evelyn Dominguez, counsel of the vendors’ association.

The Inquirer tried to seek comment from city licensing officer Nancy Herrera but she said she could not comment on the matter as the  case was already filed in court.

Herrera referred queries to the mayor’s executive assistant, Raymond Eguillos, but neither Eguillos nor De Sagun was available to give interviews despite several attempts made by the Inquirer since last week.