QC eyes uniforms, IDs for vendors

Pretty soon, you’ll see vendors in uniforms in Quezon City.

City Market Administrator Neil Lina said Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. is keen on carrying out a proposal to require "legitimate" street hawkers to wear approved uniforms and sell wares in stalls built according to prescribed sizes.

"We want our streets to look beautiful," said Lina, head of the newly-created Market Development and Administration Department (MDAD). He said the proposal only covers city-owned streets and affects around 5,000 street hawkers.

Lina said vendors will also be issued identification cards. They will also be asked to build stalls of a size prescribed by the MDAD.

"We expect the mayor to put the proposal into effect in a couple of weeks," he told The STAR.

He said City Hall has no say about the fate of another 2,600 vendors who sell along major thoroughfares located within the city’s limits but are under the jurisdiction of the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA).

The Metro Manila Vendors’ Association (MMVA) is seeking a memorandum of agreement with the Quezon City government that would protect the rights of street hawkers in the city.

But Lina said City Hall can only implement "what the law says." The Ramos administration had issued Executive Order 452 granting security of tenure to street hawkers. In response, the city’s legislature passed an ordinance recognizing the rights of street hawkers under the presidential order, which remains in effect.

But the market administrator said the Executive Order also provides that the major thoroughfares in the metropolis are off-limits to vendors.