ILIGAN City ― “Too big! Too big,” Screamed someone.

“No, it’s not too big. It’s regular size,” answered another voice.

Of course, the foregoing is just a joke. Even as a small voice chimed in: “It’s not whether it’s big or small. What matters is the performance!”

Performance of what? Of what is there to be performed, what else. Well, you can take this joke with the color green, haha, but this is no laughing matter. I’m talking about this project called “World-class Palao Market.” Which now seems “too world-class” or too big for comfort.

This almost half a billion worth of project at the city’s center was deemed to be finished in 2021 yet, December. The date has passed and another deadline is set ― March 31, 2022. Or two months from now.

Yet per the assessment of an engineer, by the name of Teodoro Gayo Jr, it would take a year and a half for the project to be finished!

A year and a half? Oh, no, someone seemed to shout at the contractor, BM Marketing, or the city government under mayor Celso G Regencia.

“Oh yes,” Gayo Jr said, or words to that effect. The ground floor has to be tiled, and the second floor too. And there’s the matter of the escalator. Has it been purchased or not?

He thinks “or not” is the answer!

And it seems there are only a few people working on the project. And a lot of other problematic things that seem to hound the project!

So other wannabes who have moist eyes on being the next mayor of the city are thinking about what to do with this one. Especially that the vendors housed in the costly “temporary market” might be asking “how permanent is temporary?” What with the “waterfalls” over their heads when it rains. Or the smelly drainage there at Tambo barangay, at bus and jeepney terminal site where they are permanent, I mean temporarily located.

But this time they may just have to add their voices in screaming, “too big!” With us thinking whether they mean the water falling over them there when it rains ― or whether they’re saying that this “world classic” market at Palao is “too big” for comfort!

(Email: norasorino2@gmail.com)