No crowd-gathering in Carbon Market during the Holy Week, exec says

Carbon Public Market | CDN Digital File Photo 

CEBU CITY, Philippines – The crowd of buyers at the Carbon Public Market in Cebu City during the Holy Week was manageable, a contrast to what was observed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Market Operations Division (MOD) head Irvin Cabales said the influx of marketgoers in the city’s largest wet public market over the holidays was “smooth and controlled.”

Cabales also said there were no violators caught.

The City Hall executive pointed out that limiting the number of entry points, and their decision to temporarily ban privately owned vehicles access into the market helped them regulate the flow of visitors.

“We really saw a huge difference this time. Particularly our entry points, and temporarily disallowing private vehicles inside Carbon Market greatly helped us in controlling foot traffic,” said Cabales in Cebuano.

From March 22 to April 3, the city government and the police implemented restrictions at the Carbon Public Market in anticipation of the crowding of Holy Week buyers.

Binignit

Last year, city officials faced wide, public backlash when photos and videos of people crowding the Carbon Market without any regard to social distancing protocols, to buy ingredients for the Lenten staple binignit, went viral.

Cabales said for this year, they decided to assign vendors to designated areas and added they were grateful that the latter were cooperative in their implementation of new policies.

“We would like to thank the vendors themselves for being cooperative,” he added.

Carbon Market is home to more than 5,000 vendors.

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/ dcb