Peaceful inside, traffic jam outside Carbon Market

CEBU CITY, Philippines —The first day of implementation of the rule that prohibits entry of private vehicles at the Carbon Public Market went well, except for a bit of a traffic jam outside the market.

Cebu City Police Office chief Police Colonel Josefino Ligan, who personally visited the area, said Carbon Market was was peaceful during the first day of the implementation and only a traffic jam outside was the problem.

READ: No private vehicles in Carbon market area rule takes effect

Ligan said the traffic was caused by some private vehicles whose drivers still attempted to go inside the market.

“Ang sulod sa Carbon Public Market hapsay na gyud. Makita nato ang mga tawo medyo ni menus bisan gani kagahapon nga rush hour nga alas 3. It’s because walay mga sakyanan kaayo nga naka sulod. Kung naa man gani, kato rang mga delivery,” Ligan said.

(Inside the Carbon Public Market was peaceful. There were fewer people even during the rush hour at around 3 p.m. It is because there were no private vehicles allowed to enter the market. If there were vehicles that entered, those were only delivery trucks.)

Ligan also added that there were no problems inside the Carbon Market so far as compared to its previous crowded scenario.

Ligan said that their strict implementation of their security plan for the Carbon Market for the entire Holy Week starting yesterday, March 22 to April 3, Saturday was one of the reasons for this improvement.

READ: Police to man Holy Week crowd at Carbon Public Market

He also pointed out that the public is disciplined enough to follow protocols. In fact, they were not able to apprehend any quarantine violator since the start of the implementation.

Meanwhile, Ligan did not also take the request of some vendors to let their private vehicles enter Carbon Market to drop off their products or their employees. Ligan clarified that only delivery trucks can enter the Carbon Market.

“Dili naman gyud nato sila ma monitor kung mag drop lang basin mag park napud didto medyo maka cause napud og traffic maka cause napud og ka huot. Anyhow, para dala napud exercise going to the area, maka contribute pa sila sa ilang kahimsog sa panglawas,” Ligan said.

(We can no longer monitor them inside even though they will just say they’ll drop off their products. Maybe they’ll park there and might cause traffic and congestion. Anyhow, they can now exercise on their way to the area, which can be good for their health.)

Around 300 police personnel were deployed at the Carbon Market to help in manning the crowd control and ensuring security and safety inside. Ligan concluded that they will continue the information dissemination as security clusters were provided with a megaphone.

/bmjo