T0 BE fair, the improvements on the Caloocan Poblacion Market had been long overdue. Since its construction in the 1910s, the market had not known any renovation or repair work. Only when portions of the palengke burned down last year was the structure finally condemned to pave the way for the new public market.

City officials and vendors alike acknowledge the sorry state of the local palengke — a dilapidated building with leaking roofs, plagued by rampant illegal electric and water connections, clogged drainage canals, and overall unsanitary conditions.

Manahan says that coupled with the difficulty in collecting stall fees, operating the market had become an unprofitable venture for the city "Lugi ang palengke," he says. "Even the Commission on Audit has instructed us to do something about the market to the extent of closing it down because we're losing money in operating it."

Vendors, however, say the city government simply mismanaged the market. Says Salazar: "We paid monthly. See, there was a surcharge, a penalty of P20 a day if you didn't ... it's their fault if they didn't go after those with delinquent accounts." He also hints of possible corruption, saying collections from sidewalk vendors have set quotas so that not all the money is turned over by the collectors to the city coffers.

Dalangin, for his part, says that if local governments are not able to realize revenues from public markets, it is because most of the city or town's market personnel are political appointees who do nothing.

Although it is historically a function of cities and municipalities, the management of public markets has never been successful in the hands of local administrators, says the Spitzer and Baum study. Markets, it says, suffer from "inadequate structures due to insufficient investments." Moreover, they do not receive day-to-day professional management, with local personnel functioning primarily as "passive managers of property, rather than active stewards of commercial activity."

But city councilor Nathaniel Santiago, who has taken up the cudgels for the vendors, says, "I don't buy the idea that the government per se cannot efficiently run a public utility or enterprise." According to Santiago, there are enough examples both locally and internationally from which the city can draw lessons.

Dalangin, meanwhile, says he cannot understand how local governments can stand seeing such defects and inadequacies beset public markets. He wonders, "Do mayors do this on purpose so they'll have a reason to privatize? Just let the markets rot and then condemn it when there are no more vendors who can stand the place?"

AS THE vendors weigh the odds against them, city administrator Manahan says that Caloocan officials are "still exploring all avenues" to help ease the city's mounting financial and debt obligations. But he makes no apologies for Caloocan's having privatization among its serious options. He observes, "Even the national government has considered privatization as an option for its projects."

Groups like Namvesco, however, suggest that as far as problematic public markets are concerned, local governments may want to consider calling on market vendors' cooperatives for help. The law recognizes cooperatives as legitimate development partners of local governments.

In April, in fact, the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) issued a memorandum circular to all local governments to allow competent, financially stable, and organizationally viable market vendors' cooperatives to manage and operate at least one public market per town or city. The memorandum likewise enjoins local councils to pass zoning ordinances that control and regulate the construction of shopping centers and supermarkets in the immediate vicinity of public markets.

Namvesco also cites the Cooperatives Code (RA 7160), as well as the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (RA 8435) as legal bases for the transfer of management and supervision of public markets to cooperatives. To prepare them for such tasks, the federation has been conducting trainings on market administration to officers of its member-cooperatives.

Unfortunately, most local governments have been lukewarm about the directive, preferring instead to seek out contractors and developers. As a result, only a handful of public markets like the ones in Malabon, Tondo, Muntinlupa, and Bagong Silang and Maypajo in Caloocan are now supervised by cooperatives. In Antipolo and Baguio, the vendors' cooperatives are locked in a legal battle over the impending conversion of the public markets into shopping malls.

In Caloocan, Manahan begs vendors to allow the city government a free hand on the public market issue. He says, "Bayaan nyo yung pamamaraan ng pamahalaang lokal ang umiral. Kaya nga sila nilagay diyan, mali man o tama, tingnan natin ang pamamaraan nila ... Hindi makakausad ang bansang ito hangga't lahat ng tao matalino. Isa lang dapat ang matalino, ang gobyerno. (Let the local government do what it thinks is best. That's why they are there, whether they are wrong or right, let's see how they do things...This country will not get anywhere if all people are smart. There should only be one genius, the government.)"

Councilor Santiago, however, says that the city government seems to be missing the point that given the massive poverty in this country, such services and facilities like public markets, hospitals, and schools ought to be regarded in the realm of public service, as part of the obligations of governance.

As for the vendors, Rosario Mata says that, bottom line, all they want is a fair and just local government. She says, "What we know of government is that it should not push us against the wall. We are licensed vendors of Caloocan. We should enjoy the right to sell and earn a living. Let's modernize, but it shouldn't be at the expense of the little people."