DAVAO CITY – Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio has banned the selling of grocery items and other retail goods hauled from the burned down New City Commercial Center (NCCC), saying these products already pose risk to people’s health.
Duterte-Carpio also cited the lack of business permit of the seller, identified as Benjardi Belardo Bermudo, who was offering items such as toiletries, bottled drinks, canned goods, snack items and noodles at cheap prices.
Duterte-Carpio, in an interview on Friday, said the NCCC management told her they contracted a construction company to demolish the building and to dispose all the remaining goods. The NCCC mall was burned in December last year, and the owners were granted a demolition permit recently.
The mayor added that the workers of the construction company were the ones who collected the items. Instead of ending in the garbage dump, the items ended at Bermudo’s makeshift store in Barangay Tacunan, Tugbok District.
Bermudo, who was one of the workers hired by the construction firm to demolish the ruins of the gutted building, was ordered to close down his store on Thursday.
The mayor said it was the Task Force Davao patrolling the area of Barangay Tacunan in Tugbok District that reported about the incident and coordinated with City Hall upon learning that the items were recovered from NCCC mall.
In a statement released by NCCC, Public Relations Manager Thea Padua said that selling of the items was not authorized by the NCCC Mall management.
“We are advising the public to take extra precaution in purchasing and consuming the damaged products,” she said.
Padua said the disposal of the goods from the mall is at the discretion of the contractor, and that any similar activity will be treated a violation of contract between NCCC and the construction company . (Lilian C. Mellejor/PNA)
