Naga to study feasibility of new public market
By Jason B. Neola
The Committee on Investment, Trade, Industry and Economic Enterprises of the Sangguniang Panlungsod of Naga is set to endorse to Mayor Nelson Legacion its proposal to create a technical working group that will conduct a feasibility study on the planned construction of a new public market.
This was bared to Bicol Mail by Councilor Jose Perez, committee chairman, who said that the project will bring more economic advantages to the city aside from decongesting traffic and commuters in the already overcrowded Central Business Districts I and II.
In an interview with Mayor Nelson Legacion, he said the plan, once realized, is perceived to fire up enormous economic activity in the city. “What we need to consider well is the exact location of this big-ticket project that promises development of another new growth area in our place,” he said.
Legacion also mentioned his administration’s plan to put up a 2-level or 3-level satellite market on a 3,000 square meter lot in Barangay Sta. Cruz. The project is a component of the Sta. Cruz New Development Area, which is seen to open up new business and job opportunities in the area.
The site sits on the outskirt of the city’s old business district that is host to at least two universities, urban housing subdivisions, a mall, and a ballooning population that call for more mobility and access to various products and services. Already, a City Health Office II and a national high school have been built in the area.
Although there is no specific site yet, the new public market project will rise somewhere in the northeastern part of the city where the upper barangays of Carolina, San Isidro, Pacol, and Cararayan are situated.
“Once realized, the new public market will also cater to the needs of the residents of nearby barangays of Del Rosario, Concepcion Grande and even those in Barangay San Felipe where new access roads will be constructed, including building a new road that will serve as a diversion route by-passing the Concepcion-Del Rosario section of the national highway,” Perez said.
He said the existing Naga City People’s Mall (NCPM), popularly called as Naga City supermarket then, was constructed in 1964 and has been in operation since 1969, when the city’s population was only around 70,000.
The city councilor said that it is good enough that a new public market be constructed to be able to provide the city, now with more than 209,000 residents (based on 2020 census), and still increasing in the next few years,” he added.
“Talipapa in the barangays cannot help the consumers to get lower prices because their merchandise at these satellite markets are procured from the NCPM and thus travel cost and profit margin are immediately added to the products retailed at the satellite markets,” Perez said.
The councilor, who is also the chairman of the Committee on Consumer Protection in the Sangguniang Panlungsod, said like the NCPM, the new public market will become a bagsakan, a service landing area for goods and products at wholesale prices, which redound to low prices when sold at retail in the market’s various stalls and stores.
“A new public market will certainly mean a new growth corridor, a new center for business, trade, and other socio-economic activities,” Perez added.
He stressed that with the city’s current population of over 209,000, which makes Naga a highly-urbanized city, it is only right that Naga should be prepared for its burgeoning economic growth and progress that should begin with another new mass-based public market.