Mandaue market operating on deficit

CEBU, Philippines - Mandaue City Public Market is operating on a deficit a year after the powerful earthquake and super typhoon affected the structure, market administrator Mosulini Suliva revealed in a media conference.

Monthly income derived from the market's operations has plummeted to P1 million or about a third of its earnings before the calamities.

Suliva told reporters that the market was severely damaged by the 7.2-magnitude tremor that rocked Bohol and Cebu on October 15 last year, made worse by the coming of typhoon Yolanda one month later.

The number of stall owners at the market was slashed by half from 1,200 to 600 as an immediate result of the twin disasters, Suliva added.

These vendors have continued to sell their food and wares in makeshift market stalls located outside the damaged market at the back of the Mandaue City Sports and Cultural Complex.

Before the calamities, stall owners used to pay the city a rental fee of P70 to P80 per day allowing the city government to rake in as much as P3.3 million in monthly revenues.

After the two disasters, Suliva said the city decided to lower daily rentals to P30.

With the present situation, the city government, according to Suliva, was left with no choice but to subsidize some of the market's monthly operating expenses,  unlike before when the market would yield a monthly surplus of P1 to P2 million.

Suliva expects that market operations will be back to stable conditions once a new market is constructed April next year.

Just recently, city treasurer Regal Oliva announced that the city is set to acquire a P600 million loan from a banking institution for the construction of the new market which will cost P500 million. The remaining P100 million will be used as downpayment for the possible buyout of the Cebu International Convention Center from the provincial government.

Starting next month, the dilapidated old market in Barangay Centro will be fenced  to pave way for the construction of the new market, Suliva said, adding that the design of the new market is already 95 percent finished. — Flor Z. Perolina (FREEMAN)