Cebu City Hall’s market personnel dismantle one of several stalls at the Carbon public market. CDN Photo/Lito Tecson
IT was not to be another uneventful day of selling pineapples for market vendor Lolita Rible yesterday.
The 57-year-old Rible was just as shocked as other vendors at the Carbon public market and Ramos public market when she was told by market personnel to vacate a stall owned by a friend named Erwin Gok-ong Jr.
Rible claimed that she doesn’t pay any rental fees to Gok-ong in exchange for letting her sell her pineapples at the stall.
Records from the Cebu City Market Authority showed Gok-ong owed Cebu City Hall about P123,211.43 in rental fees since August last year.
Gok-ong owned another stall whose unpaid rentals were pegged at P202,362.35.
Rible had been selling pineapples at Gok-ong’s stall for the past six years and didn’t know of his unpaid rentals until yesterday when she was told to sell her pineapples someplace else.
The other stalls ordered for closure were owned by Mario Flores, who owes P123,244.43 since August 2017; Eryza Gok-ong (P152,720.87 as of April 2017); and Miraluna Booc with P157,905.40 as of December last year.
The order closure was served to the stall owners last June 22. CCMA officer Winefredo Orcullo Jr. said they gave them 10 days to comply by emptying their stalls.
He said the closed stalls will be open for bidding soon. /USJ-R Intern Delta Dyrecka Letigio