• THERESA MAE DULMAN
Personnel from the City Legal Office (CLO) Enforcement Team and the City Administrator’s Office-Market Enforcement Action Team cleared 97 stalls inside the Libertad Market Annex Building, and ejected 40 unauthorized dwellers, during a clearing operation July 1.
Retired police colonel Levy Pangue, CLO Enforcement Team leader, said the operation was launched following reports from the Libertad Market Vendors Association that stalls awarded to vendors were being used as storage areas, while several had been converted into makeshift dwellings and sites of alleged illegal activities.
“Garbage was found everywhere, and we were informed that some stalls converted into makeshift houses had become havens for illegal drug use,” Pangue said in a city press release.
“Almost all the unused cubicles were occupied by rugby boys, vagrants, and other outside vendors, who have no place to stay,” he added as he noted that the facility’s condition has severely deteriorated due to unauthorized dwellers, who converted market stalls into living quarters.
The annex building was originally developed to house ambulant vendors. However, the space was eventually abandoned by merchants, who complained of lack of customers since not so many marketgoers are willing to go upstairs.
Following the clearing operation, the Bacolod Environment and Natural Resources Office and the City Administrator’s Office began cleanup efforts, with a massive flushing operation scheduled tomorrow, July 3.
The Annex Building has been temporary closed pending the cleanup and flushing operations.
Market superintendent Theresa Robles and market supervisor Cherry Aujero, meanwhile, met with stall awardees, who are vending in nearby streets, and instructed them to occupy their assigned stalls inside the Annex Building or risk having their stall allocations revoked and raffled off to other qualified vendors.
“We will discuss with the vendors’ association to finalize long-term rehabilitation plans and sustainable interventions,” Aujero said.
The city teams, joined by personnel from the Bacolod Traffic and Transport Management Department, BENRO, and the Bacolod City Police Office, also carried out large-scale clearing operations outside the Annex Building to reclaim sidewalks and streets for public use.
Simultaneous clearing operations against road obstructions were also conducted in barangays 14 and 16 by the BTTMD and the CLO Enforcement Team.
They removed three amusement stalls, or peryahan, that had occupied nearly half of the roadway following a recent barangay fiesta; towed 26 colorum tricycles, three e-bikes, three food carts, and one sidecar for obstruction and illegal parking; as well as three abandoned vehicles found illegally parked along the roadside, the city said.
Thirty-three notices of violation were issued during the operation – 14 in Barangay 14 and 19 in Barangay 16 – to owners of illegal structures encroaching on Palanca Road, it added.
The recipients have until July 3 to voluntarily dismantle their structures. Failure to comply will prompt the CLO to carry out mandatory demolition.
BTTMD officer-in-charge, Atty. Reuben Mikhail Sabig, said the operation reinforces the city administration’s policy that sidewalks and roads are intended exclusively for the safe passage of the public and should not be used for private commercial expansion or illegal parking. | TMD
