Baguio vendors urge government to respect their right to livelihood

By: Arthur L. Allad-iw, Northern Dispatch (special to InterAksyon.com)
May 16, 2015 3:16 PM

Vendors protest inhumane treatment by Baguio City Public Order and Safety Division personnel. Photographed by Arthur Allad-iw.

InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5

BAGUIO CITY – "We are not criminals! We are humans. We have the right to livelihood!"

These were the words of the ambulant and sidewalk vendors here as they play cat-and-mouse with the city government's Public Order and Safety Division (POSD) personnel who've come to confiscate their wares.

The vendors claimed that, most of the time, they are treated inhumanely by those they described as "goons" out to harass them.

Daisy Bagni, called for the "decriminalization" of the vendors who, because of lack of employment opportunities, resort to hawking on the streets of Baguio to feed their families.

There are at least 2,000 sidewalk and ambulant vendors in the city.

They should be extended help, instead, by the government, but what's happening is the other way around: their right to livelihood is being trampled on, said Bagni, who is the secretary-general of the Organisasyon Dagiti Nakurapay nga Umili iti Siyudad (ORNUS).

Osang Walitan, a 31 year old ambulant vendor, expressed disgust with the city government: "Even if we are in a private area or inside an enclosed space selling our wares, the POSD men still confiscated and grabbed our wares, with many of us ending physically hurt."

"Kasla kami nakapatay ti tao ti trato da kadakami (They way we are treated, it's as if we had killed someone)," she added.

Another vendor, Mercy Dumpit, 44, narrated how POSD grabbed their wares even these were inside their bag and not displayed for sale: "We need to feed our children. We have to stay up late at night, selling and earning our keep."

The vendors tried to engage the city government in dialogues, and were given IDs but admonished to sell their wares without displaying their wares on the streets.

But the POSD men are said to continuously disregarded their pleas invoking the agreement.

The city tax ordinance prohibits ambulant vending, regarding this as criminal acts under such legislation, but the vendors had been contesting this as inhuman, that they should not be considered as criminals.

"We urge the city council to repeal this ordinance and consider our situation," said the vendors. They also urged the mayor to be considerate to them as his POSD men often treated them "inhumanely".

"If vending is prohibited, where then is the government that should extend their help to the less fortunate like us?" Walitan asked.