BLEAK SALES?
Terminal Market vendors fear slump in sales with Bagsakan

By Leny G. Gabo

With the Pavia Bagsakan terminal comes the bagsak (slump) in sales at the Iloilo Terminal Market (ITM).

Vendors at the Iloilo Terminal Market fear that their sales will suffer a blow when the Bagsakan terminal in Pavia opens.

“We will be at the losing end (if the Bagsakan terminal goes into business),” Millennium Iloilo Supermarket Vendors Association president Alejandro Gascon said.

Vendors at the Terminal Market stand to be affected directly by the Pavia Bagsakan, which but on its planning stage.

When the proposed Bagsakan terminal materializes, vegetables and other farm products will be scarce among markets in Iloilo City, Gascon explained.

He pointed out the effect of the implementation of the Perimeter Boundary Ordinance to their sales.

Now that the Ordinance is being implemented, sales have decreased by as much as 70%, Gascon said.

Under the Ordinance, public utility vehicles coming from outside Iloilo City except those from Leganes, San Miguel, Oton and Pavia towns can no longer enter the City Proper area. They are restricted to the outskirt barangays of the City.

It used to be that were allowed to park at the ITM.

As a result, transporting farm products have become more expensive, and fewer people now come to the ITM as the jeepney terminals have been transferred to the city outskirts.

“Almost P300-P500 are spent by the vendors in transporting the products to Iloilo City,” Gascon stressed.

'Favor please, Mayor'

Because of the difficulty in transporting farm products to ITM, the market vendors have asked Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas to give four to six car passes for each jeepney association plying provincial routes so that it would be easier for these public transports to reach the ITM, Gascon said.

He specified those buses and jeepneys coming from the towns of Ajuy, Alimodian and San Joaquin-towns which produce vegetables.