Carbon market vendors: P20 daily to help fund market improvements

P100,000 average monthly collection to pay for electricity, honorariums for market security - exec

Maria Pino, Chairman of the Cebu Coalition of United Vendors Association talks about the collection of P20 from the vendors at the Carbon Night Market. | Screengrab from Sugboanon Channel/Facebook.

CEBU CITY, Philippines — At least 200 market vendors at the Carbon Public Market are doing their share to improve the Carbon Night Market and draw more customers to the area.

This was after Maria Pino, United Multi-sectoral Coordination Council of Cebu City (UMC4) chairman of the Cebu Coalition of United Vendors Association (CCUVA), told the Sugbuanon channel in a recent interview that P20 (twenty pesos) were collected from the member-vendors daily.

She said this was a program of the UMC4 aimed at funding improvements in the market.

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Voluntary donation

Erwin Gok-ong, treasurer and former chairman of Cebu Market Vendors Multipurpose Cooperative (CEMVEDCO), for his part, clarified that the P20 to be collected daily from vendors was a voluntary undertaking.

“Ang atong 20 pesos nga gekolekta sa mga vendors is voluntary. Voluntary meaning if dili ka ganahan mo bayad, dili na [nato] paninglan,” Gok-ong said.

(Our P20 that we are collecting from the vendors is voluntary. Voluntary meaning if they will not pay it then we will not ask them to pay the P20.)

Pino also said that the payment of the P20 each vendor would also depend on how many were using the tent in the market.

She said that if there would be 4 vendors selling goods or food in the tent, then each vendor could just pool P5 each to pay the P20 donation.

Gok-ong also said that based on their record, their monthly collection from the daily P20 donations would reach an average of P100,000 to P120,000.  

Pino also added in the discussion on the Sugboanon Channel that the coordination councils were consulted first about the reason for the collection, which was followed by a deliberation on the amount to be collected.

“That amount [kay] wa na namugna without the consultation sa mga kapunongan,” she said.

(That amount [because] we came up with it not without the consultation of the community groups.)

ID system

Meanwhile, Pino said that the UMC4 also had another ongoing program in Carbon Market which was providing an ID System to the vendors.

“Ang kanang ID System is very important para nako ug para namong vendors… na we don’t have any documents na makaingun mi nga taga Carbon mi, [na] tindera kog Carbon,” Pino said.

(Our ID system is very important for me and for us vendors…that we don’t have any documents to say that we are from Carbon [that] I am a vendor of Carbon.)

With this, Robert Barquilla, head of the Market Operations Division (MOD) was informed to issue IDs for the vendors as this would be the only proof they would have that they were authorized to sell at Carbon.

Pino said that although UMC4 only approved the ID System in 2023, the implementation was still ongoing for this year, 2024.