City orders Ermita to stop market ‘extortion’
A small eatery in Sitio Bato, Barangay Ermita, continues to operate near the area where vendors’ stalls were demolished last week purportedly for obstructing traffic and for being an “eyesore.”
CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA
THE Cebu City Attorney’s Office is poised to slap Barangay Ermita with a cease and desist order to force village officials to stop the collection of P10 daily from vendors at Unit I of the Carbon Public Market.
The collections which Ermita Barangay Captain Felicisimo “Imok” Rupinta calls “voluntary contributions” are said to be nothing short of illegal.
For Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, Rupinta’s collections are “tantamount to extortion.”
At least 30 vendors sought the mayor’s help, Tuesday, after Ermita tanods prevented them from selling along Quezon Blvd. in Sitio Bato, purportedly to clear the area from the “traffic obstruction.”
The vendors claimed the drastic measure resulted from their refusal to continue paying the P10 “arkabala” or excise tax collected by the barangay.
Vendor organization leader Mary Joy Geonzon who has been selling in the area for 30 years said her business has been paralyzed for almost five days now.
It was also the first time that she received a threat from tanods, she said.
“We don’t want trouble. We just want to continue our livelihood. I felt stressed because of all the threats I received from the tanods,” she told reporters in Cebuano.
Geonzon claimed that when the vendors stopped paying the P10 daily fees to the barangay, a petition to demolish them was immediately made and then acted upon by village officials.
“Rupinta was mad when we stopped (giving the fees). They parked a bus in (our vending area) and then our tables were confiscated,” she said.
Legal action
In a news conference, Osmeña said the city will take legal action against barangay officials responsible for the collections.
“Anything we can do, we will do. I am not playing lawyer here, but we will do whatever we can do,” Osmeña said.
For City Attorney Joseph Bernaldez, the fees are highly questionable.
In a legal opinion dated July 26, 2016, the City Legal Office (CLO) pointed out that the market collection in Ermita violated some of the city’s local ordinances.
“Tataw kaayo nga ang dunay obligation or katungod magkolekta sa unsay due sa syudad mao ra g’yud ang CTO (City Treasurer’s Office),” said Bernaldez.
(It’s very clear that the only office with the obligation to collect what is due to the city is the CTO).
“The city treasurer shall exercise immediate supervision and administration of measures on market fees,” Bernaldez added.
This, he said, was based on Republic Act (RA) 3857 or the revised Cebu City Charter and City Ordinance No. 1486 or the ordinance enacting a revised market code for Cebu City.
Bernaldez warned of court cases if Ermita officials persist on collecting the fees.
For City Markets Operations Division (MOD) head Winefredo Miro, a former Ermita barangay councilor, Ermita was only “fooling” the vendors.
“I asked Rupinta before about the total collection for the contribution. I told him ‘Why is this the only collection we have when it’s supposed to reach more than P50,000?’” recounted Miro, to which the barangay captain reportedly replied with: “Pag-kapitan usa so you will know (Be a captain first so you will know).”
“Where is the check and balance there?” Miro asked.
City Hall meeting
Amid questions about the legality of the daily market collections, a cease and desist order will be issued by Cebu City Hall to the barangay.
The decision was reached after vendors met yesterday with Bernaldez and City Councilors Dave Tumulak and Sisinio Andales, the heads of the committee on police and committee on laws, respectively.
Ermita’s market collections, based on a barangay ordinance, began in 2002. It affects around 4,000 vendors in the area.
Several issues need to be threshed out with Ermita officials, including their alleged failure to issue official receipts for the collections.
Tumulak pointed out that only stubs showing the name of the barangay collector are issued by Ermita for each P10 payment.
“This could not be considered an official receipt and could not be accounted by the City Accounting Office,” Tumulak said.
Conflicting figures
The city’s market officials believe that Ermita could easily collect between P100,000 to P120,000 daily from the vendors.
“This is because they actually collect six times a day – in the morning, noon, afternoon, evening, midnight, and at dawn,” claimed Miro, adding that even the treasurer’s office collects from vendors only once a day.
“What they submit to the treasurer’s office and accounting office is only P100,000 to P200,000 a month. The city markets office says they collect P100,000 to P200,000 daily,” Tumulak said.
Sought for comment, Rupinta stressed that the P10 collection is only voluntary and not everyone pays for it.
Dismissing the claims of Tumulak and Miro, Rupinta insists that Ermita’s collections are only between P10,000 to P12,000 daily since not all 4,000 vendors in the village “contribute.”
The revenue then goes to the barangay’s general fund, Rupinta said.
Once a copy of the cease and desist order is received by the barangay, Rupinta said that they will first have to review it./with Correspondent Inna Gian Mejia
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