By RALPH JOHN MIJARES
ROXAS City — Ambulant vendors at the Roxas City Integrated Transport Terminal are willing to negotiate with the city government over the latter’s plan to “relocate” them.
“Kon gusto nila nga maghalin kami sa terminal, hatagan nila kami sang pangabuhi-an (If they want us to leave the terminal, they should provide an alternative livelihood for us),” Pueblo de Panay Vendors Association president Amalia Rodidillo said.
She also suggested that the city government let them sell at the terminal in exchange for a small amount or “arkabala.”
“Gapangabuhi lang kami sa pasahero (We make a living from selling to passengers),” said Rodidillo.
Pueblo de Panay president and chief executive officer Jose Nery Ong told the ambulant vendors that they will soon be “relocated” some 300 meters away from the terminal, Rodidillo said.
The new site is where jeepneys and L300 vans pick up passengers.
When they will be relocated is not certain yet, she said, because the land has to be leveled first and their tents were still being put up.
Currently, ambulant vendors are still allowed to approach passengers outside the terminal, said Rodidillo.
City government representatives recently met with Ong to discuss the vendors’ relocation.
Ambulant vendors are “unfair competitors” because, unlike the lessors of stalls at the terminal, they do not have to pay rent, the city’s consultant for economic affairs Carmen Andrade said, adding that the vendors’ relocation was Ong’s idea.
The vendors have been selling at transport terminals, but they are earning “almost nothing” since transferring to the Pueblo de Panay terminal, Rodidillo said. Some of them have arrears for their rice and viand, she said.
Antonio Tolentino, 28, of Cuartero, Capiz, was an ambulant vendor for nine years in different terminals in Roxas and Iloilo cities.
When he was selling at Albar Terminal on Kilometer 1 here, Tolentino said he was earning a maximum of P500 per day.
At the integrated terminal, Tolentino earned only as high as P200 and as low as P50 per day.
The father of two, who lost his house to super typhoon “Yolanda,” would sometimes come home “[nga] nagatulo ang luha (in tears).”
Tolentino’s two children are a five-year-old girl, who is already in day care, and a two-year-old boy. The father also works as a kargador.
Tolentino hopes that ambulant vendors like him would still be allowed to remain at the terminal, even just to sell peanuts and balut.
He said, however, that he is willing to pay for a special permit to sell at the relocation site./PN
