THE Mandaue City Government is looking to revise zoning sections at the Mandaue City Public Market (MCPM) to attract more buyers and encourage renters, an official said Friday, Jan. 5, 2024.
Mandaue City administrator James Jamaal Calipayan said they plan to reorganize the market sections to follow a supermarket-like arrangement, where goods are placed in an assorted manner to allow vendors to sell more goods and buyers to shop conveniently.
Calipayan said they intend to formulate a technical working group with the Committee of Market and Abattoir to produce an ideal and updated zoning map as soon as the first quarter of 2024.
Jenny Ceniza, market administrator, said the working group would consist of the city administrator, budget officer, Sangguniang Panlungsod office, treasurer’s office, public market officials and market vendor representatives.
Calipayan said the initiative came after they noticed that several vendors had abandoned their stalls because their sales had been sluggish.
Data from the MCPM show that the two-story market comprises 11 sections–ready-to-wear (RTW), grocery, vegetables, fruits, dried fish, rice-corn-cereals, appliance or utensils, meat, chicken, fish, and cafeteria.
However, Calipayan explained that market shoppers often only visit the area for wet goods, and other sections receive fewer customers, such as those for fruits, vegetables and RTW, primarily those located on the market’s second floor.
Calipayan said the reason for this could have been the strict specification of goods in the market, wherein each section is assigned only one good to sell, which he said might be inconvenient to buyers.
“Naa may uban gud, for example, sa fruit section sa taas, daghang bakante kay di kaayo manaka ang mga tawo. Hasulan. Way mopalit og prutas, pero daghan nagexpress og interest nga moabang, pero dili ra fruits ang itinda. So dili pa ta makahatag ana karon kay dili man siya mo abide sa zoning nato kay naa man na sa ordinansa. We will have to revise the zoning,” said Calipayan.
(There are others, for example, in the fruit section upstairs, there are many vacancies because people don’t go up too much. They find it a hassle. No one buys fruits, but many have expressed interest in renting, but for a store that sells not only fruits. So we cannot yet give that to them now because that would not abide by our zoning. After all, there is an ordinance that we follow. We will have to revise the zoning.)
The market has more than a thousand stalls, with about 998 occupied and around 200 vacant as of Jan. 5.