Sidewalk Capitalism

Dr. Yeoh Seng Guan of Monash University researched about the sidewalk vendors of Baguio City this year. The film that he shared with the audience at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City showed the highlights of his study. It was a film that we hope this administration, especially GMA, would see to understand how poverty has become so widespread and how it has deepened as well.

Dr. Sylvia Guerrero, world-renowned sociologist, came to check how this recent Baguio research would compare with one that she conducted in the same area in the early 70s. As the film started, Dr. Guerrero immediately noted how densely populated Baguio has grown through the years. People were almost bumping into one another at the sidewalks of Session Road. "Grabe" is a mild word to capture the evident change.

Even the mountains of Baguio were no longer visible as human dwellings crowded to take control of nature.

Several vendors were interviewed and the highlights of their vending activity presented. One interesting but sad data presented in the film showed many of our Muslim brothers and sisters from various parts of Mindanao trying hard to make a living out of vending at the busy sidewalks of Baguio. It came as a shock to find a very bright UP Cebu student, also from Mindanao, who were among the vendors of Baguio. These twin sisters from Mindanao took a study leave to sell their handmade accessories and other items in Baguio. If this is not deepening poverty, then we no longer know what the meaning of the term is.

A fluent English-speaking lady vendor of candies and toys was also featured. She proudly informed the interviewer that her customers, mostly students, still remember her. According to her, many have since graduated and have moved on with their lives. They would chance upon her and she would be introduced to the children of her former clients, who used to be children themselves then. This lady vendor epitomizes the continuing face of poverty. Throughout generations, she has remained in the same trade, almost in the same place, selling the same items, and not moving on along with her young clients who have grown up and moved on.

Dr. Yeoh Seng Guan showed other types of vendors. They were distinguished by the type of items they sold, the location where they peddled their wares along the sidewalk, the length of time that they have been vending, their geographical origins, their present life situation and their views about their life, as well as their dreams.

The items sold by the vendors ranged from food items ( balut, local ice-cream, candies etc. ) to pirated CDs, to accessories and toys. Their items catered to different types of customers, again distinguished themselves by age, by profession, by gender, among others.

Dr. Yeoh Seng Guan pointed out that the items linked the small limited world of the vendors with the rest of global economy. The vendors interviewed said their items were peddled to them by other nationalities ( the Chinese and the "Bombay", even Malaysians, among others). The vendors also reflected how small-time dealers like them have been sidelined to sidewalk vending by a global economy that perpetuates continuing inequality among the rich and the poor.

Women vendors in Baguio have a special area they have christened as "abortion road." This is the place where many women vendors have been chased away from their selling places by police and authorities who intermittently implement the anti-sidewalk vending policies of the city government. The pregnant among those chased and beaten by the authorities lost their babies, often in the place they have chosen to immortalize as abortion road.

Why do migrants from all over the country, as far as Mindanao as well as many others from neighboring provinces of Luzon, choose to come and sell their wares in the sidewalks of Baguio? Some say they like the climate. Most, however, point to the large resident and tourist population as the greatest attraction for their being in Baguio.

The vendors, however, are not only in the sidewalks of Baguio but all over this country. Perhaps next time you see any of them in your own sidewalk, you may also wish to stop and ask them to tell you about their lives. Unfortunately, the top officials of this land never take the sidewalks, except perhaps, during election period. Those who travel in tinted vehicles and who live in air-conditioned houses will never see the vendors and the other real faces of the continuing, the expanding poor of this land.

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