This March 11, 2022 file photo shows Carbon Market vendors fending off Market Authority personnel installing yellow railings along Quezon Boulevard.
CEBU CITY, Philippines—A week after Cebu City Councilor Joel Garganera condemned the alleged use of children as human shields in multiple Carbon Market incidents, vendor groups are challenging the councilor to look deeper into the city’s contract with Megawide and the alleged human rights violations hidden in it.
Carbonhanong Alyansa, the main opposition group of vendors against Megawide’s development of the Carbon Market, said in a statement that while they welcome the investigation of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) on the incidents, they are asking Garganera to also look into the joint venture agreement (JVA) that, they say, puts women and children in long-term danger as well.
“We are asking Councilor Joel Garganera (CHR too ) to look at videos posted online, particularly on Facebook. It is not fair to accuse us of using children as human shields from what he saw in the CCTV that Megawide installed in the Interim Market.”
“We also ask the good councilor and CHR to read the whole JVA so they would see that some provisions violate the rights of vendors. And by violating those rights, the JVA endangers the welfare not only of the vendors but also of their children,” said Ann Ariosa, the spokesperson of Carbohanong Alyansa.
She added that the violations of vendors’ rights in the JVA are more deserving of an investigation by CHR than “Councilor Garganera’s diversionary tactic of an allegation that we used children as human shields.”
Ariosa said that raising the concern of child abuse during the heated moments of the Carbon Market clashes diverts the issue from the bigger problem of the JVA.
She vehemently denied that any vendor group deliberately used children as shield, but rather the unfortunate incident was brought by the extreme fear and emotions of both vendors and the children at those moments.
“Councilor Garganera and the CHR need to understand that the troubles in Carbon are rooted in his and his fellow councilors’ failure to consider the rights of vendors: The right to be heard, the right to be guaranteed a place in the modernized Carbon Market.”
“They did not consult us and we have that right. They did not read and study the JVA if it promotes the greater good to a bigger number and that is their responsibility as elected officials,” she added.
The group hopes that when CHR in investigates the issue, they will find root cause that got the children of Carbon Market involved in the protection of their homes.
/bmjo
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