Carvajal: For whom the bell tolls

By a vote of nine for, three against and two abstentions, the Cebu City Council passed the onerous amendments to Carbon’s portion of the Market Code and essentially handed the public market in a silver platter to a private business enterprise. I attended the third and final hearing and heard the bell begin a deathly toll as the final nail to the coffin of Carbon Public Market was hammered in.

It was really a done deal from the start. An amended Market Code is stipulated in the Joint Venture Agreement (JVA) the City signed with Megawide without the stakeholders, mainly 4,000 or so ambulant vendors, having a say about it. Thus, true to form, the councilors passed the amendments after perfunctorily going through the formality of three public hearings.

Carbon Public Market is officially dead and going to its grave. Carbon, the symbol of Cebuano resourcefulness and industry. Carbon, the source of cheap basic products for financially challenged consumers and small businesses. Carbon, the source of livelihood to small ambulant vendors. Carbon, the place where small farmer-producers, small fisherfolk, and small manufacturers from the province and neighboring islands deliver their products to retailer-buyers.

In its place will rise Megawide’s as of now nameless mall. (I just hope they do not call it Carbon as it would insult the dead market and dishonor its revered legacy.) But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and just listen to the bell’s deathly toll and discern for what and whom it tolls.

The bell tolls for basic necessities and essential goods that thrifty Cebuano homemakers and price-conscious small businesses could no longer source from Carbon at pocket-friendly prices. These will be buried in Carbon’s mall-topped grave, beautiful and shiny but still a grave.

The bell tolls for small farmer-producers and small home-based manufacturers who could no longer afford the raised entrance fees for goods they used to unload in bulk in Carbon to sell to retailers.

The bell tolls for sando-shorts-slipper-wearing small time vendors, caromateros, seawater suppliers to fish vendors, and errand boys doing an honest day’s work for a living. These will no longer be allowed to mar the beauty of the mall that will replace Carbon Public Market.

Finally, most mournful of all, the bell tolls for public service that pro-JVA councilors and higher city officials allowed their big business partner to send to its grave for some indecent incentive the public could only suspect. As one vendor puts it, dili na serbisyo, negosyo na ang naghari sa Cebu City Hall.

It would be interesting to find out later where the 4,000 or so ambulant vendors will go to sell their products since the nameless mall of Megawide can only accommodate 600 registered vendors.

All that notwithstanding, the fight is not over to retain Carbon as a public and not a private market. I don’t hear the bell tolling for the ambulant vendors’ indomitable spirit.