By: Modesto P. Sa-onoy
The massive and fast removal of illegal sidewalk vendors has created a big headache for local governments, especially in crowded cities like Bacolod. They have mushroomed through the years because this kind of business is the easiest means for the many poor to earn a living. Otherwise, they would have engaged in more profitable and legal enterprises. Like the drug pushers and illegal bet collectors, they represent the real face of many Filipinos and the indictment against the government and the corruption that bleeds the public treasury of funds that could have created the opportunities for our people.
Aside from the vendors, there are hundreds of hovels and lean-tos that had dotted the city streets and, like the vendors, restricted the flow of people and vehicles and caused unnecessary inconveniences and costs. The illegal structures in canals and creeks are different and I will deal with this subject later.
Well, the tolerance of public officials who are more concerned with their election than enforcing the law and serving the public welfare has borne fruit that can no longer be ignored, at least from the mind of President Duterte. Now the politicians are haunted with this critical problem of finding, relocating and preventing greater damage to public welfare and their own skins with the threat of suspension for the barangay officials and surely the mayors.
To paraphrase the line from the Book of Hosea, they sowed the wind of illegal tolerance and now they are reaping the storm of displaced vendors and the homeless.
There is no published data on how many vendors had been removed and their livelihood disrupted but we believe there are thousands of them not only in the cities but in towns and even barangays. The government is thus uprooting people from their means of livelihood and abode without knowing where to resettle them. Local government officials were caught unprepared and the Department of the Interior and Local Government that had also been negligent in “reminding” local governments of the responsibilities will just be too glad to play the heroic enforcer.
The three Bacolod public markets and the streets in the city’s main commercial center were the first to get the axe. Many in these markets were relocated inside where they should have been in the first place but for the politicians who wanted to curry favor from them and the expensive sub-leasing by the original grantees. Those around the commercial district were removed but many merely moved inside the stores since many of them were “extensions” of the stores and bazaars.
I wrote about the re-routing of the passenger jeeps to bring buyers into the Vendors Plaza where some vendors were to be relocated. As I said then, this solution was tried before, and it failed. Repeating the same mistake and compounding it with the transfer of the jeepney terminal there is a short cut to a messy problem. Even the other day, the confusion and snide remarks were already heard simply because the solution has compounded the traffic problem in that area.
The Vendors Plaza stands on prime land and converting it into a casbah will hardly attract the right kind of customers. But then, this is the fastest solution just to show that something is being done. But like all half-baked cakes, they do not sell.
So far, the only solution to the displaced vendors is the Vendors Plaza but like all laws that make life difficult for people to comply particularly the occupancy of this place will be short-lived. It was done before but the several attempts to make sense of this useless elephant that swallowed several millions of public funds, failed. This knee-jerk solution will cost more; even city officials appear not really convinced of their success.
At least they can show the President and make people think they are doing something. But I believe the local officials are just trying to sail the stormy waves until Duterte ends his term just less than three years from now. Unless the next president will be strongly willed in law enforcement, the illegal structures and vendors will be back probably with a vengeance.
The fear that President Duterte has created in the public mind made the removal of these illegal structures fast. There was a rush for compliance but we can see that many more have failed.
