The Vendors of Mendiola

by Erika Denise Dizon

HE DRAGGED his tattered slippers on the soiled and unpaved streets of the province daily to attend his afternoon class some 40 years ago.

He never really liked school.

For five times a week, he cursed at the piercing rays of the twelve o’clock sun that walked with him for adding to the burden. Always the reluctant and lackadaisical student, he rarely opened his workbook at home. At school, he was the perpetual latecomer. It was easy to spot him sleeping in the middle of the lecture, but hard to drill in his head the name of discipline. That was Edgardo.

One day, he stopped attending class. Instead, he opted to help his mother sell clothes at the nearby plaza at the ripe age of 16, not knowing that his decision to forever cease schooling would someday be the foundation of his regrets and toils.

At 55 years old, he is now a sidewalk vendor who sells clay pots at the short stretch of Mendiola Street in Manila.

Edgardo’s story is all too common in the Philippines where, according to the Basic Education Statistics of the Department of Education, in 2009, 7.45 percent of the country’s high school students are dropouts.

Seated behind three brightly colored clay pots on the floor, his worn out cap slightly covered his face as he talked softly but fervently on that cloudy morning. At the age of 17, Edgardo married his childhood sweetheart and had five children. All five of them are already married and three of them did not finish high school.

“They just weren’t fond of studying,” he said boldly, but with a seemingly disappointed expression. “They were all like me when I was a student.”

He sells clay pots at Mendiola Street only on Thursdays because that is the only day the vicinity police allow them to.

“Many people pass by this area during Thursdays because there is mass going on in one of the neighboring churches.” He also sells his clay pots in front of the historical Quiapo church every Friday.

Edgardo admits that his weekly earnings are good enough to sustain him and his wife’s basic and daily needs.

Pisila, 54, is also a sidewalk vendor. She sells pocket-sized prayer booklets in front of San Beda College for the small amount of 20 pesos.

"Sometimes, I get to earn around a hundred pesos at the end of the day when luck favors me."

A hundred bucks would go a long way to the sidewalk vendor, whose conspicuous white hair and wrinkled hands echo her five-decade-worth of trials. A hundred bucks would provide her family at home rice for the whole day, and school allowance for her two grand children whose mother left them under Pisila's care in exchange for greener pastures in Olongapo City. A hundred bucks would provide them hope to endure the two or three to come -- but only when this so-called "luck" is by their side.

One of her two grand children, six-year-old Katrina, skips school every Thrursday to help her grandmother sell the booklets.

"It's okay [to have a difficult life]," Pisila said. "It may be difficult but you don't have a choice. You have to work hard to get by."

Pisila's husband spends time at home on most days of the week while she stays at Mendiola to sell the remaining prayer pamphlets until six in the evening.

Lastly, there is Melchor, a pedicab driver, a jolly old fellow at the age of 39, and a present day Magi, who gives his gift of service to the civilians of Manila.

Census showed that underemployment rates in the country have gone down to 17.9 percent, a 1.9 percent decrease from 2009 stats.

Although he has been a pedicab driver for 15 years now, and earning only about 250 to 300 pesos a day, he has a degree in Electrical Engineering but failed to graduate because of his family's fiscal problems then. Despite all those, Melchor dreams big for his three young children. He hopes that one day, they may finish their schooling in order to attain a better and brighter future.

"No pain, no gain," he said in high spirits

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Policemen collect ‘extraneous’ funds from street vendors

By Erika Denise Dizon and Alyosha Robillos

ST. JUDE PARISH—police do their rounds in herding away street vendors that loiter around the area but allow them to remain for a measly amount.

For some people in the Philippine labor force’s informal sector which is mainly composed of street vendors, home-based workers, “pedicab” drivers, non-corporate construction workers and other own-account employees, everyday is tariff day.

“For me to be able stay here and sell my merchandise, I pay the police 10 to 20 pesos every Thursday,” revealed Aracelie Ramos, a vendor of religious items stationed across La Consolacion University.

Ramos is not the only one the police have victimized. In fact, most vendors would also hand over money on a regular basis to prevent the officers from confiscating items on display, while others admitted to hiding whenever the police were around.

“Every time a raid would happen, I would have to shell out around 100 pesos just to keep my things,” kwek-kwek and fishballs vendor Alec Samson unveiled.

Samson narrated the time his wooden cart used for cooking was taken away from him after an unanticipated storming. “I had to beg for my frying pan back,” he said.

It seems that higher earning street vendors pay a lot more than their small time neighbors since the police could confiscate anything without restriction and vendors with higher incomes could give more.

In 2009, the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES) proved that more than half of the country’s 33 million workforce was underemployed. Unfortunately, the informal sector still remained a big chunk of the labor force in the first quarter of 2010, the Labor Force Survey (LRS) showed.

In July this year, according to the LRS, the labor force was estimated to 39 million, 64 percent of the projected 60 million Filipinos above the age of 15. Out of this total, 34.8 percent was listed under the own-account workers category, pointing out that more than half of the Philippine labor force remains to be underemployed.

People like Ramos understand the government’s need to control unlicensed commerce but she and her co-vendors believe that there is still room for compromise.

“I earn an honest living. I don’t steal, unlike the policemen who come here. I’m willing to get a permit but I don’t have the means and offices, in general, don’t mind people without money. This is why we have the government. They should be looking into this,” Ramos said.

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