The price of parking

By Herman M. Lagon

Cities survive floods, elections, and brownouts, yet sometimes the loudest debates are about parking. That tension surfaced in Iloilo when talk of regulating rooftop parking at the new Terminal and Central markets spread—right in the middle of a fuel crisis. One moment people were admiring the fresh look of the redeveloped markets. The next came the familiar question: “Te, free ini or may bayad?” It sounded small, but it was not. Parking is where policy meets daily life, especially when every peso spent on gas already hurts. The proposal reportedly includes two hours of free parking to regulate use of limited spaces. Still, the mix of fees, access, and public trust explains why the issue has stirred more debate than many bigger policies.

To be fair, the case for paid or regulated parking is not foolish. It is, in fact, annoyingly rational. Parking spaces in a busy city are not infinite, and free parking has a way of being treated like a family inheritance. A slot meant for a shopper buying fish, rice, and onions can end up occupied all day by somebody working nearby, running errands elsewhere, or simply gaming the system. Studies on parking policy often arrive at a simple observation: when parking has some form of price or time limit, spaces turn over faster. That means fewer drivers circling blocks in frustration and more chances for actual shoppers to park. In a busy public market, that turnover is not a technical detail. It decides whether someone stays to buy fish and vegetables or decides the hassle is not worth it.

At the same time, markets are expensive to run. Buildings age. Lights burn out. Security, cleaning, drainage, repainting, and repairs never stop. Iloilo City recently reported that collections from markets and parking reached about ₱100 million in 2024, with paid parking contributing roughly ₱8.9 million. Those numbers suggest that parking fees, however unromantic, help keep facilities operating. “Free” parking often means the cost is simply absorbed elsewhere.

The situation is also tied to how the markets were rebuilt. Iloilo Central and Terminal markets were redeveloped through a public–private partnership with SM Prime, which aimed to modernize facilities while keeping them public in function. In that context, regulated parking is not some alien corporate whim that fell from the sky. It is part of a larger attempt to make old urban spaces work better in a busier city. One can understand why city hall and its private partner would see parking management as part of the package. If a building is modern but the access is chaos, people will still say, “Nami tani, pero budlay man gyapon.”

Still, the objections are not whining. Many of them are grounded, local, and painfully familiar. Public markets are not boutique destinations. They are where household budgets go to wrestle with inflation. The woman buying monggo, pinakas, and a quarter kilo of pork is not there for leisure. The teacher stopping by after class to buy vegetables before going home to check papers is not exactly on a lifestyle excursion. For people like them, even modest parking charges can feel like a tax on necessity. The emotional logic is easy to understand: if the market is public, if taxes already exist, and if basic goods are already expensive, why should entering a public market with a car feel like entering a private mall? In a city where daily life already comes with too many “small” extra costs, people do not experience parking fees as an isolated policy. They experience them as one more hand in the pocket. That is why the issue has stirred more than technical debate. It has touched the nerve called fairness.

The fear for vendors is even more concrete. Public markets live or die on foot traffic, habit, and convenience. A family that has bought produce at one market for years can be surprisingly loyal, but not infinitely so. Make the trip harder, hotter, or more expensive, and habit begins to wobble. One report as far back as 2022 framed the new parking supply as a way to draw in more customers and help micro, small, and medium enterprises housed in the markets. That means parking is not a side issue to market life. It is tied to sales, deliveries, and the daily choreography of buying and hauling goods. If the fee structure is reasonable and clearly explained, it may indeed help turnover and customer access. If it feels punitive, confusing, or less attractive than nearby alternatives, then the very infrastructure meant to help vendors may quietly work against them. A city can build a beautiful market, but if buyers decide that the cheaper amargoso is not worth the added hassle, beauty will not pay the stall rent.

There is also a class question tucked inside the parking debate, and it deserves honesty. Parking policies often sound neutral until one asks who can absorb them casually and who cannot. A professional arriving in an SUV for a quick coffee and grocery stop may barely feel a fee. A small vendor, a delivery driver, or a public school teacher budgeting fuel for the week will feel it more sharply. Transport and parking scholars have long warned that parking policy is never only about vehicles; it also shapes access, land use, health, time, and whose convenience is quietly prioritized. Newer public health research even argues that parking policy affects air quality, road safety, heat, and the way cities distribute space. In plainer language, a parking rule can reveal what a city thinks a public place is for, and whom it is willing to inconvenience. That does not mean every paid parking system is anti-poor. It means every such system should be designed with enough humility to know that “equal rules” do not always land equally on unequal lives.

Communication, in this case, may matter almost as much as the fee itself. Many of the angriest reactions online and onsite have come not from a final, fully understood policy, but from uncertainty. How much after the first two free hours? Are vendors exempt? Are there grace periods for loading and unloading? What are the hours? What happens during major market rushes, or when somebody is buying in bulk for a karinderia or school canteen? The city’s side has stressed that the move is about responsibility, safety, fairness, and preventing all-day vehicle storage, not simply squeezing money from shoppers. That is a defensible goal. But people tend to trust a policy more when its details arrive before the rumor mill does. Once speculation starts cooking, facts enter the room late and underdressed. In many cities, distrust is not always about the amount charged. It is about whether the public believes the collection will be transparent, the exemptions sensible, and the rules applied evenly, not only to ordinary motorists but also to the well-connected sacred cows of local life.

The wisest view, then, is neither to romanticize free parking nor to worship paid parking as if a ticket stub were proof of modern governance. Free parking can be abused. Paid parking can be misdesigned. Both can fail if the larger system is poor. What matters is fit. For many Ilonggos, the public market is not just another property on a city map. It is part of daily life, daily income, and daily survival. Any parking policy there has to remember that order matters, yes, but so do fairness, affordability, and the small people who always adjust first.

In the end, the issue is not just the roof deck. It is the direction Iloilo takes as it becomes more modern, and whether that progress still feels humane. A growing city does need order, turnover, maintenance, and money. It also needs memory, fairness, and a feel for the household arithmetic of ordinary people who buy dinner one market trip at a time. If parking at the markets is managed with clarity, restraint, transparency, and a real bias for the shopper and vendor rather than for mere collection, people will grumble, then adjust. If it feels like one more clever charge dressed up as reform, people will remember that too. That is the thing about parking: it looks like a slot for cars, but in civic life it becomes a slot for trust. And once that is lost, no ramp is wide enough to bring it back.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.