City to decide on “fate” of Carbon vendors today

The city government will decide today whether or not vendors at Unit II of the Carbon Public Market can remain in their present locations with the impending construction of the P135-million ramp in Unit II.

City administrator Francisco Fernandez yesterday said the decision will be made after he confers with the City Engineering Office on the appropriate move considering that the relocation site for the vendors is admittedly not yet ready for use.

Fernandez said they are considering the possibility of requesting the contractor of the ramp project to also do the asphalting of the area where the vendors would be relocated. The area is adjacent to Unit II.

Last week, the vendors sent a letter to Mayor Tomas Osmeña and asked they be made to stay in their present sites longer, precisely because the relocation site is not yet suitable for occupation.

The city has already extended the deadline for the vendors and illegal settlers to voluntarily vacate Unit II to give way to the construction of the ramp. The deadline was supposed to be yesterday, February 26. The city will also clear Unit I of the market and the entire Quezon Boulevard of vendors.

There are some 100 vendors in Unit I who are formerly occupants of the razed building of Unit II, and around 400 to 500 ambulant vendors along Quezon Blvd. but city market administrator Racquel Arce said they will prioritize the legitimate vendors over the ambulant ones.

The city government has contracted the services of W.T. Construction in 2004 for the reconstruction of a ramp from F. Escaño to F. Gonzales Streets with a contract price of P134,500,000.

The City Engineer’s Office earlier explained that the project has not started immediately due to existing problems with Young Builders Inc., the former contractor of the project.

The civil works on the market’s reconstruction was delayed after Young Builders, the contractor hired by the previous administration to rebuild Unit II, built a fence and refused to allow entry to the area until the city pays it an additional P6 million.

Young Builders had been awarded the P22-million contract by the previous administration to rebuild the Unit II of Carbon Market, which was razed in 1998. But when Osmeña was reelected as mayor, he decided to have a P135-million ramp built to decongest traffic at the Carbon area and aborted the services of Young Builders. – Joeberth M. Ocao/MEEV