Vendors buck Arranque Market privatization

Some 1,200 Arranque Market vendors and workers in Manila have sought legal help over the city’s P190-million planned privatization of the market, alleging it to be a "midnight deal" and threatening to sue Manila city councilors should they ratify it.

Members of the Arranque Market Vendors Consumer Cooperative (AMVCC) are now fiercely lobbying for the junking of the privatization contract of the city government with Syndicate Management Group, which they said could "economically and socially displace them."

The vendors have started coming to Manila City council sessions, wearing black, to pressure the 36-member council not to ratify the contract.

The contract has been signed by Manila Mayor Lito Atienza and awaiting council approval for it to be enforced.

Manila City Hall, however, was quick to deny the charges and said that the privatization was" transparent and above board" and that the allegations were "baseless."

The cooperative, headed by meat vendor and former overseas contract worker Eduardo Tagura, has sought the help of the Office of Legal Affairs (OLA) of the University of the Philippines College of Law.

"It goes into motivation; why are they rushing this contract? We are not imputing any wrongdoing on them but this is suspicious," said Jun Bautista, one of the OLA staff members working on the case.

Bautista said they are not thinking of extreme measures like filing a contract annulment suit or the filing of administrative charges against the councilors and Mayor Atienza yet, but are hoping the councilors will simply void the contract.

Tagura, however, cleared Atienza of any liability saying the mayor "simply signed the contract" based on the recommendation of the council committee that studied it.

According to Bautista, they have found five flaws in the contract. These are: that the required publication and invitation to bid were incomplete, the bidding was conducted with undue haste, the market vendors were not consulted, the area allocated for the vendors is insufficient in size, and the vendors’ relegation to the basement of the building to be built – raising questions of ventilation and public health.

But according to a Manila City hall statement quoting City administrator Maria Lourdes Isip, the invitation to pre-qualify and bid were published in a newspaper while the bidding was conducted in the presence of a representative from the Commission on Audit.

The UP legal department, however, said the publication was made twice but only in one broadsheet, contrary to the law’s specification that it be two different newspapers. Almost all publication requirements of the Manila city council are made in the same newspaper. – Jose Aravilla