For SM Prime Holdings, Yrong-Yrong bows to lord & master

 When Datu Saripada Agwak handed over two premier real estate properties of the people of Yrong-Yrong to his lord and master for a song, SM Prime Holdings, he neither had the welfare of consumers nor of small vendors, especially the ambulant ones, in mind.

The ordinance in the guise of traffic management, prohibiting ambulant vendors is hatched for that, that is, ban small entrepreneurs from making a living on one hand, and on the other, ensure super profits to his lord and master (which is also the lord and master today of his progeny and successor Rise-Rise) -- SM Prime Holdings.

No, Datu Saripada Agwak contrived of that more sinister plot than in cahooots with SM Prime Holdings, that is, displace, cripple and destroy small entrepreneurs who make honest living at the Tienda Mayor (Central Market) and Terminal Market (Super Market), both of which are now in the firm clutches of SM Prime Holding which the "contract of lease" describes as "lesee" but in reality, is de facto full owner of these prime real properties. SM Prime Holdins pays zero in rent to the people of Yrong-Yrong for the 50-year duration of the contract. Lease-payment comes in full after 50 years, when the "leasee" hands back to Yrong-Yrong the two structures it erected. By then, the 50-year old edifices would be maintenance nightmares; by then the brain for the sell-out Datu Saripada Agwak, and perhaps, his progeny Rise-Rise would have already journeyed to the Great Beyond, either in Paradise or in Hell, preferrably, the latter which cathechism teaches us, as eternal damnation.

The "contract of lease" signed by SM Prime and Datu Saripada Agwak does not oblige DS Agwak to grab the throats of small entrepreneurs but the servant in DS Agwak and Rise-Rise, were just over-zealous to please their lord and master, thus, their persecution of ambulant vendors that we see now.

Before the sell-out, that is, when the people of Yrong-Yrong had full control of both public markets, the briskiest and liveliest exchanges happened in late afternoons and early mornings when the principal players, the traders disgorged their goods from jeeps and trucks - fruits, vegetable and fish arrived for delivery to stall holders inside the markets.; those the stall holders could not absorb, the ambulant vendors themselves would sell on makeshift stands and tarps outside the markets and vicinities.

The ambulant vendors are also called "transient" or "bolanteros"; they role was legal before because city hall charged them "arkabalas" for doing business at the perimeters of the two public markets.

Traders across Yrong-Yrong Strait, Guimaras Island Province, also participated in these morning and late afternoon bonanza, their products mostly live chickens, fish, sea weeds, shells and crabs.

I used to time my trips to either Super or Central early mornings or late afternoons because goods sold outside the markets by bolanteros were not only fresh but cheap as well.

That flourishing trade that we ones saw at the peripheries of the Central and Super markets are now gone.

Datu Saripada Agwak and his progeny successor Rise-Rise decided to obliterate all that; and they suceeded.

The duo now criminalizes being bolantero subjecting one and all to harassment, arrest, and confiscation of wares. In these times of worsening crisis, both are proving themselves good servants of SP Prime Holdings.

For the greater glory of the lord and master SM Prime Holdings.