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BY GLENDA SOLOGASTOA
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Friday, January 27, 2017
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ILOILO City – Over 70 structures of vendors illegally occupying the sidewalk surrounding Jaro Plaza were demolished yesterday.
But the evicted vendors refused to disclose where or to whom they paid money for the right to sell on the sidewalk.
Clay jar vendor Rita Buray of Cagayan de Oro City said she had been selling her stuff every Jaro fiesta for the past 27 years.
“I spent a lot of money coming here. I borrowed money,” she said while on the verge of tears.
This year, said Buray, she started selling clay pots on the sidewalk of Jaro Plaza on Jan. 3. But she declined to identify the group or persons collecting payment from her and other vendors and won’t say why.
According to City Administrator Hernando Galvez, he confronted the Association of Barangay Councils (ABC) of Jaro about the sidewalk vendors’ operation.
Every year, the city government authorizes ABC-Jaro to organize the Jaro Agro-Industrial and Charity Fair for the Feb. 2 district fiesta of Jaro.
But even if the association’s office building was just inside Jaro Plaza, ABC-Jaro claimed ignorance about the sidewalk vendors.
Galvez lamented that the sidewalk vendors themselves were unhelpful.
“They refuse to identify the persons or groups who got their money. Very uncooperative,” he said.
He advised Buray and other displaced vendors to go after the persons or groups who collected money from them and who made them believe that their businesses were legal.
“We will be very happy kon i-akusar nila ang sin-o nagbutang dira sa ila,” said Galvez.
While some vendors voluntarily dismantled their structures yesterday, the city government’s Task Force on Anti-Squatting and Illegal Structures removed the rest.
“Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog is determined to clean the Jaro Plaza sidewalk. But he also recognizes the economic plight of the vendors, thus he ordered that we look for areas where they can be transferred,” sad Galvez.
The removal of vendors from the sidewalk outside Jaro Plaza was one of the conditions the Sangguniang Panlungsod included in the memorandum of agreement (MOA) that the city government would be signing with ABC-Jaro for the annual Jaro Agro-Industrial and Charity Fair.
Galvez said vendors selling marble products and clay jars will be transferred to the Jaro Big Market at the back of the Jaro Cathedral, specifically on El 98 Street.
Bingka vendors will be moved inside the plaza while fruit and plant vendors will be transferred beside the Jaro Fire Station in front of the old Jaro police station.
They have no legal basis to do business on the sidewalks surrounding the plaza, stressed Galvez.
“We wanted to know, too, who allowed them to occupy the sidewalks but they were silent,” he lamented.
The vendors wanted to stay on the sidewalks until Feb. 5 or three more days after the Jaro fiesta on Feb. 2. They wrote Mabilog letters, mostly handwritten, appealing for compassion.
“Please allow us to recover our capital. Selling fruits is our sole livelihood to support our families,” read one letter written in Hiligaynon. It was from a fruit vendor./PN
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