BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – The story over the renovation of popular eating spot Manokan Country by a tycoon’s firm has taken on strange twists and turns like skewered chicken intestines after City Hall had it closed it the morning yesterday and, hours later, the vendors agreed to finally transfer, ending a week-long impasse during which threats of lawsuits against City officials were made.
And, like barbecued isol or chicken ass, this issue appears to have stood out in the neophyte administration of billionaire businessman Albee Benitez to be the first challenge to his government’s public-private partnership ventures.
Yesterday, 16 July 2024, the Integrated City Enforcement Team, acting on orders from City Legal Officer Romeo Carlos Ting Jr enforced the closure of Manokan Country by putting yellow caution tapes on the entrances of each of the stalls.
As this article goes to press today, 17 July 2024, the vendors are meeting with Councilor Celia Flor and Benitez to hammer out the specifics of their transfer to the temporary stalls just across their old spot.
SM Prime Holdings Inc, which will develop the popular chicken barbecue spot under a public-private partnership arrangement, will provide the stalls free of charge.
Flor, who chairs the local council’s committee on markets and slaughterhouses, said only the remaining vendors have substantially complied with their financial obligations to City Hall, paying off their arrears that amounted to millions of pesos each as of last year.
Councilor Vladimir Gonzalez had said yesterday only those who have paid at least half of their arrears will be allowed to transfer to the temporary site.
Flor also said today the vendors had assured her and Mayor Albee that they will not initiate the filing of any criminal or administrative charge against them amid earlier pronouncements from lawyers Jose Max Ortiz who represents them and Roger Reyes who represents Task Force Kasanag that identifies itself as a citizens’ watchdog.
Manokan, that first opened in the 1980s as a collection of stalls selling chicken parts on skewers and grilled on charcoal across the public plaza before it was transferred to its present site at the Reclamation Area of the Bacolod Real Estate Development Corporation.
The City had also applied a claim to chicken barbecue as a cultural property.
