With the fast disappearance of parks and public spaces to give way for commercial businesses, we settle to small patches of parks tucked within private residential communities to have a place to breathe in. It is within these intimate green spaces—despite being almost inaccessible to the general public—we get to hold recreational activities such as having picnics, running in play grounds, and holding fairs and organic markets.
An epitome of this setting is the quaint Legazpi Park, which is most known for its weekend organic market Legazpi Sunday Market. For the past 13 years, residents all over the metro have been flocking to the pocket park bounded by high-rise buildings to buy fresh goods directly from farmers.
This has been the usual set-up at Legazpi Park until today, when the official Facebook account of the Legazpi Sunday Market announced that they’re moving to the parking lot between the adjacent Washington Sycip Park and Corinthian Plaza “to make way for the construction of a new car park.”
In a report by the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI), Mara Pardo de Tavera of Mara’s Organic Market said the Brgy. San Lorenzo Business Association informed the vendors about the new development last December. The vendors are given until the end of this month to do businesses at the park.
She added that the Makati Commercial Estates Association offered them the parking lot behind Corinthian Plaza as an alternative space. However, “it will be half the size of Legazpi’s,” Padro de Tavera told PDI, “so we have to reduce the number of vendors in March.”
We reached out to one of the market’s officers, Michael Claparols, for the number of vendors and farmers that will be affected by the move but no response has been made as of writing.
Legazpi Sunday Market assured that they will be back at the same location once the parking lot construction has been completed. The only problem is no actual month has been set by the park’s holders since the construction hasn’t even started yet.
As of now, Pardo de Tavera said she is considering an offering made of Butch Campos, chair of Fort Bonifacio Development Corp., who is willing to give them a space in Bonifacio Global City for a full-scale organic market.
This is the second time Pardo de Tavera’s organic market had to move. After establishing Mara’s Organic Market in 1994 at the old tree-lined area in Greenbelt near Ayala Museum, they were forced to relocate (which eventually led to Legazpi) when plans to construct Greenbelt 5 spawned.
Header image courtesy of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
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