DAVAO CITY, (PNA) — Davao City officials may have cleared the streets of criminals but not the street vendors who immediately return to their turfs along with their goodies the minute the demolition team has left.
This has prompted the city to look into the possibility of putting up a night market similar to HongKong, where they will relocate the illegal vendors.
“The first thing I would focus on would be the problem on street vendors,” Davao City Councilor Melchor V. Quitain said when asked about his priorities once appointed as City Administrator of Davao.
Quitain resigned from the City Council during its regular session Tuesday to assume the post of city administrator this month.
The city government follows the one-third/two-thirds rule, which allow vendors to occupy only one-third of the width of a sidewalk, leaving the remaining space as open sidewalk.
Retired Col. Yusop Jimlani of the City Mayor’s Office-Drainage Management Unit (DMU) said the street vendor problem has become so big they dwarfed and jampacked the Almendras Gym when the city invited all of the 2000 illegal vendors for a meeting on August 13, 2013.
“We invited 2,000 as it was the capacity of the gym but we counted more than 3,200 during the meeting,” he said.
Despite the meeting, the vendors insisted on occupying the whole sidewalk leaving the team no choice but to demolish their wares especially along San Pedro, Ilustre and R. Magsaysay (formerly Uyanguren) streets.
Up to 50 personnel accompany the City Demolition Unit everytime there is an operation but Jimlani refuses to call it demolition because they are “simply relocating the vendors” and reminding them to follow the 1/3-2/3 rule.
While the team has resorted to the confiscation of the wares of vendors who continue to defy the policy, he said, the demolition team’s confiscation is not that intensive because they do not have a storage space for them.
Lacida Lagunzal, a 61-year old mais (corn) vendor, was one of those who realized that the team was serious when she came back after lunch and found out that her mais was no longer on the sidewalk where she left them.
Jimlani however took pity on her since she has to support very young grandchildren so he gave her P3,500 as payment for the mais.
“I have always begged them to please observe the policy because I know they rely on this for a living but some are just too hard-headed,” he said.
Jimlani said they have received threats because of their continued operation against the illegal street vendors but he wants them to rethink their moves because having spent 30 years in active service with the Philippine Army, he said he is not easily scared by these threats.
The DMU, together with the City Administration Office and the City Tourism Office, are studying the feasibility of putting up a night market as an alternative for the illegal street vendors. The group is set to complete the meetings this month after which they will already start the night market.
While they are still deciding on what time the night market will start and whether it will be daily or only on weekends, he said they are eyeing the closure of M. Roxas Avenue in front of Ateneo de Davao University or Sta. Ana Avenue for the night market venue.
Jimlani said they are planning to deploy plainclothes officers to monitor the streets of illegal vendors who will violate the one-third two-third policy.