Tagbilaran City officials have closed the Dagohoy Market on Hontanosas Street in Barangay Poblacion 3, moving its vendors to the Bohol Land-owned Bagsakan Center in the city’s downtown area, after residents complained the market’s lack of parking was choking traffic and drawing illegal sidewalk vendors.
The market, though popularly used as a public trading center, is privately managed and sits on land owned by a group unaffiliated with its operators, according to Atty. Thea Ivory Parras, head of the City Economic Enterprise Office.
Parras said her office had received complaints that vending along the sidewalk was worsening traffic congestion in the area.
Despite an earlier order to shut down the market, fish vendors continued selling on the sidewalk each morning in violation of the prohibition, she said.
City Mayor Jane Cajes-Yap facilitated the vendors’ transfer to the Bagsakan Center to protect their livelihoods, Parras said, adding that Dagohoy Market’s private, unregulated status set it apart from the city’s designated public markets.
Tagbilaran City has for years faced with congestion around its market areas, as vendors have spilled onto sidewalks and roadways near both public and privately run trading posts.
Local officials have periodically pushed to consolidate informal or unregulated markets into designated centers — such as bagsakan facilities meant to serve as formal landing points for bulk produce — as part of efforts to ease downtown traffic and bring vending activity under city oversight.