MANDAUE CITY, Philippines — Over a hundred stalls at the Mandaue City Public Market that were closed since the COVID-19 pandemic will be awarded to new vendors soon.
Market administrator Ceasar Mercadal Jr., said that the vendors that were granted the stalls have yet to respond to the letters sent by the market.
Mercadal said that they still had a deficit on their rental fees especially since a few vendors did not declared their stalls closed.
Rentals fees at the market ranges from P80 to 120 a day depending on the location.
The Mandaue City Public Market has a total of 1,200 stalls but hundreds have closed since 2020 because of the effect of the COVID-19.
While some were able to open again others have remained closed. Most of these were located at the second floor of the market selling fruits and ready to wear items.
The granting of stalls would be conducted through a raffle, he said.
A lot of vendors have already applied to be one of the beneficiaries, he added.
New Mandaue market policy
Meanwhile, a new policy is being implemented in the market.
Mercadal said that since December customers, who would want their fish to be cleaned up at the market, would now need to bring the removed fish gills and entrails with them.
He said that the Department of General Services informed them and conducted an information dissemination that fish gills and entrails are no longers accepted by the landfill where the market’s garbage were thrown.
“Una mobaho ang entrails…Wala tay choice, kay og ipadala nato (ang basura) nga naa to ang mga entrails dili man nila dawaton, so mabaho ang merkado. So no choice gyud mi kung sa ila gusto moabide lang mi,” said Mercadal.
(Before the entrails will smell…we have no choice but to let the garbage where the entrails are inside they will not accept it, so the market will smell. So we have no choice if they really wanted us to abide with this.)
However, he said that there were discussions on how to dispose these waste and there were proposals that it would be boiled and would be fed to animals.
Fish vendors admitted that some customers understood while a few were complaining on the new policy especially those renting a boarding house or living in a subdivision.
“Amoang ingnun nga dili pwede ibilin kay makamulta mi. Ang uban mangita na lang og paagi,” said Cecil Bacante.
(We will just tell them that it is prohibited to leave them here. The others will just have to look for a way.)
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