AS BACOLOD City and the province of Negros Occidental enter the fourth day of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), small vendors of vegetables and fruits growers in Burgos and Libertad markets, as well as in Bago City and Murcia town, have expressed woes over significant drop in their sales and lesser food supplies.
Responding in local dialect, five vendors in the city randomly interviewed by SunStar Bacolod said "not only our sales dropped, but every day, we are getting less supply from our kumprador and byahedor."
"Our sales dropped up to 60 percent, and still worsening each day, because people coming to the markets keep on decreasing everyday due to lots of checkpoints," said Tay Oting Depallo, and Melanie Obisca, both regular vendors in Libertad and Burgos markets, respectively.
Obisca said that some of her regular clients complained that some checkpoints are so discouraging and even threatening people going to the market.
"This should not be the case, as the flow of goods and movement of people to get food are supposedly unrestricted or guaranteed by our law," she added.
Depallo said his byahedors who bring him daily supply of vegetables, fruits and other basic items are already discouraged to bring in volumes because they are also losing due to low turnout of customers causing low sales.
In Murcia public market and Bago City market, vendors are selling less products every day due to same reasons as in Bacolod.
Digoy Pane and James Villa, regular vendors of assorted fresh and dried fish in Murcia and Bago, respectively, said they are getting less and limited variety of fish due to their kumprador's problem in so many checkpoints and higher price from their main source.
"If this continues, I might stop selling because my income is not even enough to pay my 'alkabala'," Digoy said.