Why not a Carbon market at the SRP?

On television this week, I saw a heart-warming sight of citizens having been benefited from a positive response of government authorities. In that segment, an upbeat volunteer reporter from among the depressed-looking occupants of the Cebu City Carbon Market, finally got in touch with city hall officials to find a solution to their long standing problem of clogged sewers. He had to, in his fighting words, take uncommon initiative because the situation became hopeless and unbearable. As a result, he and his colleagues felt great relief that the flooding of the market floor with unimaginable refuse resulting from unserviceable drainage was finally remedied.

As that report flashed on the tv screen, I was horrified by the background scene. People moved away dilapidated tables of all sizes and forms, bravely waded thru what appeared to be muck and gouged buckets upon buckets of garbage seemingly unmindful that they did not have the minimum protection against attendant hazards. They were working on an area which, to my shock, served as the market place of our food stuffs! My God, the food that might have been served on my table could have passed where the filth was.

Carbon market has seen better days. There are parts of its structures whose integrity has been severely doubted. People, finding no better place in which to earn a living, continue to ply their trade under its leaking, almost falling roof to customers who are unaware that perhaps, at anytime and sans warning, debris would rain upon them. In some buildings whose portions are still strong enough to withstand the battering of time and abuse, the arrangement of goods is more marked in confusion than in order that buyers following the disorganized alleys can be likened to laboratory rats released, for scientific purposes, in a maze. There, they trust their animal instincts to survive.

While today the Carbon Market continues to be a place where sellers and buyers meet, it has lost a significant percentage of its previous customers. Many of its former patrons have chosen to go to private marts, despite the fact that at Carbon, the prices are relatively cheaper. To them, the lure of lower tags is not enough to compensate the absence of the other amenities they enjoy in modern shopping arcades.

It is time to build a new city public market. A new construction will afford the chance to consider the necessary requirements of a marketplace attuned to the times. A new facility, for example, must provide areas solely for the safe and clean reception of goods coming from outlying sources. Additionally, there is this undeniable demand for ample parking spaces considering that motor vehicles have become a necessity among our people rather than a luxury that they were in the past. Then, the market tables, counters and stalls must be logically constructed and arranged to expedite the process of buying and to promote a free flow of human traffic. More importantly, there is the need to adopt a treatment facility for the air that circulates in the market with the end in view of expelling the repulsive odor of fish and meat. Finally, the water that is used in some of the market's operations must be treated so that when it is thrown away, it will not adversely affect the environment.

The construction of the new public market does not have to be done at its present site. Plainly said, it is better to erect one at a new place. To build a new market elsewhere will give our officials the complete opportunity to package it. I suggest that the mayor consider a space at his pet project the South Reclamation Area as a new site of the Carbon Market. Believe me, many advantages may be cited for the city's opting for this new place the most obvious of which is to start utilizing the land where a great portion of our taxes presently go. Then, we no longer have to witness the blighted scene of making do with this derelict of a marketplace.