GENERAL Santos City's Central Public Market, if freed from traditional view, is an important state instrument, both in the field of social reform and economic development. However, it is unfortunate that it is sidelined in the pursuit of the Yaman-Gensan program, and excluded in its continuing development narratives.

Indeed, it is unfortunate! City Mayor Pedro B. Acharon Jr. and Representative Darlene Magnolia Antonino-Custodio are known advocates of genuine and equitable development, wherein the basics communities not merely benefit from the "trickle-down-effect", but from their direct participation in the dynamics of local economic development.

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Sadly, however, the city's economic development planners, operating within the DTI and OCEMCD, are proven too naive and myopic with their failure to give flesh to a democratic development paradigm espoused by Jun Acharon and Darlene since their introduction into the local political arena.

To be fair to these offices, it is not that they refuse to conform, but they probably just do not know how to go about it, owing either to their economic amateurism, distorted world view, or, worse, lack of it.

It is an error to exclude the public market from the development processes of Yaman-Gensan, as a program and as a doctrine. It is our last bulwark against the elite control of our economic life. It is our last defense against the onslaughts of purely profit-motive and socially destructive ventures.

Supported by appropriate policies, the public market could become instrumental in establishing the strong connection between locally-owned small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and the basic good producing communities.

If we could transform the public market into a huge display center of raw and processed goods produced by the basic sectors in the economy, we could, in effect, facilitate a dynamic partnership between the forces of production in basic communities and the middle forces operating within the city's economic center.

This partnership will enable community-based economic forces and their allies in the metropolis to take control of the commanding heights of the local economy; thus, dispersing economic benefits to the widest segments of the local population.

The public market serves as a university where the masses learn the intricacies of society's political and economic conditions. It is also in the public market where the people can objectively determine the justness or the unjustness of prevailing social structures and policies and the balance or imbalance of social forces.

Moreover, the public market is a venue for close interactions between and among peoples coming from various economic strata, sectors and cultural groupings. As they congregate for the purpose of eking out a living and for their needs, they are also afforded opportunities to appreciate and empathize with each other's situation, understand each other's cultures and traditions and internalize each other's struggles.

All these contribute to the attainment of our common yearning to build a harmonious, orderly, united, cohesive, dynamic and prosperous society.