Loren: I'll fulfill Mar's "broken promise" to vendors

CEBU, Philippines - Nacionalista Party vice presidential candidate, Senator Loren Legarda, said she will fulfill the “broken promise” of her contender for the second highest elective post, Senator Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, to the vendors of Carbon Public Market in Cebu City.

Legarda, in a visit to the vendors of the Carbon market yesterday morning, assured Clarita Estrada, one of the fruit and vegetable vendors at the city’s biggest market, that she will be the one to fulfill Roxas’ promise to construct them a market building that will house their stalls.

Tightly gripping Estrada’s hand, the lady senator said she will not promise but will work to grant the vendors’ request. “Unlike my competitor (Roxas), hindi ako mangangako, gagawin ko lang.”

Legarda is running under the ticket of NP presidential bet Senator Manuel “Manny” Villar while Roxas, who is famously known as “Mr. Palengke,” is the runningmate of Liberal Party standard-bearer Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.

Legarda said she will talk with Mayor Tomas Osmeña for the allocation of a budget for the immediate construction of the requested market building so that vendors will no longer put up their stalls on the sidewalk.

She said that even if she is not a political ally of Osmeña, who is the chairman of the Liberal Party in Cebu City, she will talk with him to help the vendors on their request and eventually not disappoint them again.

The senator also said that whenever the mayor needs her help, especially in the city’s health advocacy, which, she claims as one of the important things that she always campaigns for, she is “just a text away.”

Estrada, who joked not having any blood relation with former president Joseph “Erap” Estrada, suddenly grappled for the senator’s hands and asked her what she can do to help vendors acquire their own market building once she wins in the May elections.

In 2004, Estrada said that she already brought up the problem to Roxas, who promised her and the rest of the vendors that he will help them come up with their own market building.

“Pero hanggang ngayon po kasi hindi naman natupad ang pangako ni Mr. Roxas. Baka sakali kayo ang maka-tulong sa amin,” said Estrada, who has been in the trade for 10 years already.

Legarda later reflected to local reporters what she had discussed with the vendors.

“See? Nakita ninyo ‘yon? Hindi ‘yon scripted. Si Clarita na mismo ang nagsabi na pinangakoan sila ni Mr. Roxas ngunit hindi naman natupad. Kaya nagkaka-develop ng cynicism ang mga tao dahil sa ganyang klase ng pulitiko,” she told reporters. “I’m different. Hindi ako marunong mangako, marunong akong gumawa.”

Maria Pino-Buanghog, president of the Cebu City United Vendors Association and a councilwoman of Barangay Ermita, said that after a fire damaged a large part of the Carbon market in 1998, the city presented a plan to construct a two-storey market building in the area with a budget of P253 million.

However, she added that until now, the plan has not been materialized because of lack of budget and some problems that the city had with the project’s contractor. — /WAB   (FREEMAN NEWS)