Cebu City acting market administrator Raquel Arce expressed she is already hopeless that her office would be able to collect rentals from occupants of the Warwick-Barracks satellite market who have already reportedly converted the place as their residences.
Arce said that the Warwick-Barracks market is, to her, “a headache” because occupants reportedly continue to ignore demands for them to settle their rentals already amounting to hundreds of thousands of pesos.
Warwick-Barracks satellite market is adjacent to Freedom Park at the Carbon Public Market area, or within M. Escaño Street in the west, M. C. Briones Street in the south, Calderon Street in the east, and El Filibusterismo in the north.
It used to be a military barracks of American soldiers in Cebu. Several years later, it was converted into a satellite market after the foreign troops abandoned the place.
Illegal settlers of Warwick-Barracks are not only “headaches” to the market administrator, but also to Ermita officials because they are reportedly not paying taxes too to the barangay.
“Dili ra g’yod kay sa City Hall ra nang problemaha, hasta kami sa barangay Ermita naproblema kay dili g’yod mamayad og buhis nang mga tawhana,” barangay treasurer Enriquita Cabigon said.
Arce said market collectors were only able to collect rentals from vendors who have stalls located along the roadside. Collections from January to June this year reached to only P781,631.
Warwick-Barracks has an area of about two hectares similar to Freedom Park market, where collection reached P1.8 million for the first six months of this year.
Arce said had occupants of Warwick-Barracks market only religiously paid their rentals, overall market collections from January to June this year could go over P18.6 million. — Rene U. Borromeo/MEEV