WHAT is the other view of the streets after clearing operations?
Citizens have expressed their overwhelming approval for Mayor Isko Moreno’s drive to remove vendors and prevent them from hogging Manila streets.
The images of the once turbulent streets and sidewalks of bargain-haven Divisoria purged of vendors that had overtaken the sidewalks and the streets to ply their trade, attended by an equally turgid flow of buyers and sightseers, have generated praises for Moreno’s political will in carrying out only two days after he took his oath of office a deed that his predecessors didn’t for decades.
As the whole nation watches whether Moreno’s example will be emulated by other local governments, the mayor of Manila has to address other equally crucial and more complicated aspects of the vendor “problem”: how will Moreno support the vendors’ need to earn a living without violating the Law?
Moreno must be commended for literally going to the streets to wrestle with urbanization woes. This immersion in the grassroots must also make him intimate with the needs of these constituents to earn and survive.
Many vendors are women, solo parents and other micro-entrepreneurs seeking to earn and provide for their children and other dependents.
In Cebu City, Mayor Edgardo Labella has promised to provide for a relocation site before demolishing the illegal stalls of vendors, according to a July 23 SunStar Cebu report by Kevin A. Lagunda.
About a hundred Carbon market vendors whose stalls have encroached the road will be relocated to M.L. Quezon St. in Barangay Ermita. The Cebu City Government was also reported as planning to put gravel on the relocation site to prevent this from being muddy and discouraging buyers.
While upholding the rights of motorists and pedestrians to roads and sidewalks, local government units (LGUs) must still assist vendors practice their trade, as well as protect them from the network of scalawags exploiting them.
Aside from syndicates illegally charging and extorting from vendors, there are moneylenders providing loans for capital at usurious rates.
In promising that the City Government will now organize the vendors in the city, Moreno raises the expectations that the vendors will be provided a relocation site. For a micro-entrepreneur with dependents, a single day of not being able to sell their goods affects their access to basic needs.
Organizing the vendors means also capacitating them through access to micro-credit and trainings in entrepreneurship, financial management, and solid waste management to help them become even more productive for their families, as well as the community.
While many citizens have praised the city “makeover” carried out by the Moreno administration, other citizens have also expressed worry that the vendors, whose goods were affordable for many, will no longer be able to ply their trade and serve the consumers they cater to.
LGUs must develop the potentials of the informal economy to become not just legitimate members of the economy but also active participants providing affordable commodities, farm produce, artisanal crafts and other alternative goods and services not offered by arcades, malls, and other business centers catering to more affluent markets.
Davao and Cebu practice “time-sharing” innovations in cooperation with vendors’ cooperatives to close specific streets to hold night markets that give vendors access to urban space for their livelihood.
Local officials must work with nongovernment organizations and people’s organizations representing the informal economy to develop a plan for short- and long-term sustainable development that incorporates the informal sector’s needs, resources, and contributions.
Citizens and local executives must remove the biased blinkers that view the informal sector as simply urban eyesores and problems. In inclusive, holistic development, every citizen has a contribution to make.