Vendors defy order to vacate Rizal Park stalls

MANILA, Philippines - Ambulant vendors are defying an order by the National Parks Development Committee (NPDC) to vacate their stalls at Rizal Park for not paying rent and to give way to the park’s development, an official said Monday.

The vendors, about 300 of them, denied the allegations and accused the NPDC of trying to ease them out of the park to give way to traders capable of paying P1,000 a day in rent.

NPDC executive director Juliet Villegas said they have been very lenient with the vendors, who are charged only P200 per day. She said some vendors owe as much as P50,000 in rent.

“We are not after their livelihood. All we want is to put things in proper perspective. They have been remiss in their payments and we have documents to show,” she said.

Villegas said the vendors have no permit and do not have the necessary sanitation and health documents for the food they sell. “We are asking them to vacate the place because we have ongoing projects. It’s not like we wanted to ease them out without any reason,” Villegas added, citing the Senior Citizens Center that is currently under construction at the disputed kiosk.

The Rizal Park Vendors Consumers Cooperative, headed by Rolando Perello, said under a 2004 agreement signed by then tourism undersecretary Armand Arreza, they were allowed to peddle their goods in the park. When Villegas took over in 2010, they were told to leave their stalls to give way to the NPDC’s projects, Perello said. He said park officials cut the power and water supplied to the stalls and surrounded their kiosk with bamboo, isolating them.

Perello said they are willing to leave their stalls if the NPDC allows them to relocate to other areas in the park, a proposal that Villegas junked.

“We reminded them that the agreement was for them to use the place where they have their stalls only for their ‘temporary use.’ But there are obligations that go with it. They have to pay rental and their respective electric consumption. We even allowed them to use water for free, but they were not able to comply with it,” said Virgines Aguirre, NPDC chief of administrative services.

Aguirre added that in their Feb. 15 dialogue, the NPDC informed the vendors that once the improvements are completed, they will have a right to submit an application for a “food and non-food” kiosk they are planning to put up but they should follow certain rules and regulations.