New village ordinance mandates P10 daily market fees in Ermita

In this file photo, Ermita officials led by Barangay Captain Felicisimo “Imok” Rupinta (seated) smile for the camera, happy to be back in office after a six-month suspension for failing to assist the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in Central Visayas (PDEA-7) during a drug raid conducted in the village.

As officials of Barangay Ermita continued to lock horns with City Hall over the collection of P10 daily from vendors of the Carbon Public Market, a new barangay ordinance was passed making the so-called “voluntary donations” mandatory instead.

Barangay Ordinance No. 045-2017, passed by Barangay Ermita last August 15, mandates a “vendor’s operation monitoring fee” to sustain and augment the needed on-duty barangay personnel.

“The Vendor’s Operation Monitoring Fee is a Monitoring Service Fee, necessary to sustain and augment the needed personnel on-duty 24-hours daily, who shall monitor, report and/or police, to ensure cleanliness/health and sanitation, traffic, orderliness, security and safety/peace and order concerns of the vendors, consumers, tourists, and by-passers while within vicinity of markets and Barangay Ermita as a whole,” read the ordinance, which was referred to the Cebu City Council for approval.

During the council’s regular session, Tuesday, the new village ordinance was referred to the committee on laws and the City Legal Office for review.

Under the barangay ordinance, Ermita will collect a “vendor’s operation monitoring fee” of P10 for every square meter of used vending showcase, space or place every day.

If approved by the City Council, the ordinance would put to rest the ongoing rift between City Hall and Ermita officials over the legality of P10 daily fees collected by the barangay from around 4,000 market vendors in Ermita.

Ermita Barangay Captain Felicisimo “Imok” Rupinta has continued to insist that the collections were just “voluntary donations” from vendors as not everyone pays for it.

But the Cebu City government has warned village officials and collectors that the city will have them arrested by the police for robbery if the collections continued.

City Hall also threatened to file a criminal case for robbery against the barangay officials and collectors in court.

“It’s better if they file a case in court so the court will decide and interpret our ordinance if our collection of the voluntary donation is legal or illegal,” Rupinta said in Cebuano, referring to a village ordinance passed in 2002 which allowed them to collect P10 daily as “donation” from the vendors. That ordinance also had yet to be approved by the Cebu City Council.

Rupinta has stood pat on his earlier pronouncements that he will not stop collecting the fees, which, he said, were needed to pay for the salaries of barangay workers.

He also believed that arresting barangay collectors for robbery would have no basis as this would be done without “pertinent documents.”
Rupinta said they will fight off any arrest made.

Rupinta expressed confidence that they will win the case if it ever gets to court.

As of yesterday, no collector from the barangay has been arrested for collecting the fees.

Last month, Mayor Tomas Osmeña called Rupinta’s attention over the fees’ collection which were reportedly not voluntary at all as vendors who refused to pay the amount either had their stalls demolished or their goods confiscated by Ermita barangay tanods.

Cebu City Councilor Dave Tumulak, deputy mayor on police matters, vowed to make good the city’s threat to arrest collectors.

“We just like to remind the barangay tanods or whoever made the collection to stop while there is still no arrest. The police will really arrest them because that is plain and simple robbery,” warned Tumulak.