Eking out a living

Not too long ago, the C-5 extension near our office was lined in both directions with ambulant vendors selling various types of food, from beef pares to goto, kwek-kwek and farm products including fresh bamboo shoots.

The area, where traffic remains light, became a popular pit stop mostly for motorcycle riders who ate by the roadside. I often stopped to buy bamboo shoots, now increasingly rare, for my lumpia; the vendors told me the plump shoots came from Laguna.

Some months ago the vendors disappeared. Were they eating into the business of registered food outlets in the area? Where there’s demand, however, someone tends to feed it. There are a lot of motorcycle riders along the road. In recent weeks, the ambulant vendors have started returning, but now they operate only at night. And they are enjoying brisk business.

At around the same period, in my neck of the woods, I’ve noticed the streets and sidewalks coming alive, also at night, with an ever-increasing number of ambulant food stalls.

Maybe they are playing hide-and-seek, ready to pack up and run when the authorities come around. In the intense heat, night operations are also better. Or maybe they have struck a modus vivendi with authorities in the area, so they are allowed to earn a living again, but only at night.

This last possibility is better, although I hope they aren’t being made to pay exorbitant fees to operate.

Instead of driving away such vendors, the government should encourage their entrepreneurial spirit.

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Local government units can set aside public space accessible to customers, where the hawkers can operate in a clean, safe environment, free from harassment and extortion.

As a minimum requirement, the vendors must keep their food carts and allotted spaces clean. Basic fees can be collected if the government provides services such as sanitation, safe water and toilet facilities.

For further encouragement, the government can provide training to the hawkers in basic financial literacy and micro business management – in lessons that can be easily understood by grade school dropouts, which most of these vendors are likely to be.

Since we have so many impoverished people willing to earn a living as hawkers, the government can level up incentivizing their entrepreneurial spirit by incorporating it in tourism development.

I’ve been on food trips overseas and I can attest that our street food can compete with hawker fare elsewhere. But certain standards for food safety, taste, cleanliness and quality of service must be observed.

Cartagena in Colombia, for example, has an old town or historic center that is so similar to our Intramuros. Enclosed by 11 kilometers of defensive walls built in 1586, with a 16th century fortress still intact, the Colombian walled city is packed with foreign tourists.

There are no high-rises in this old town, with its narrow cobbled streets so similar to the few preserved stretches in Intramuros. The old houses, many with bougainvillea adorning balconies, and five-star accommodations are painted in vibrant colors. Sculptures of top Colombian artists adorn parks.

What struck me during my visit pre-pandemic, however, was how organized hawking was all over the area. Souvenir items were sold not only in shops but also on sheets laid out right on the sidewalk by ambulant vendors. Women in colorful traditional clothing walked around selling sliced watermelons and fruits on basins they carried on their heads. Children sold a top Colombian product, coffee, from flasks, pouring the brew into disposable cups, for the equivalent of about P20. (There were beautiful coffee shops, of course, that sold Colombian coffee at Starbucks-price levels.) Native snacks were also sold or cooked in front of you from pushcarts.

The area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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Hawker fare is a major draw in many of the world’s top travel destinations. In our region, think of Thailand and Taiwan, where culinary tourism is a big revenue earner.

Several major malls have set up areas where Pinoy hawker fare can be sold, such as barbecued items including chicken feet and intestines as well as kwek-kwek (deep-fried dough-encrusted quail eggs) dipped in spicy vinegar. But because these hawkers pay rent, the prices still can’t beat those sold by the ambulant vendors who come out at night, catering to motorists and commuters on their way home.

The government must provide venues for those who want to earn a living from a micro enterprise but can’t afford to rent even the cheapest mall space.

Rent is a major disincentive to entrepreneurship in our developing country. Even a middle-class woman I know lost her entrepreneurial spirit after investing her life savings in a retail venture, developing the store space and contributing a lot to promote foot traffic in the strip mall near her home.

It was an Instagram-worthy shop, and business was picking up as the lapse of her two-year lease approached. With so much invested in the shop, the woman thought the lease would simply be renewed. Instead, she was told that the entire wing had to be torn down to make way for mall expansion, with no compensation for her initial investment.

Distraught, the woman asked what she would do with the materials she had used for the shop interiors. The guy who informed her that the shop would be destroyed told her the materials could be sold to scrap dealers: “Puede nyo namang ibenta sa magbabakal.”

That’s how tough life can be for micro entrepreneurs in this country. Millions of others don’t have enough to invest even in materials that can be sold to the scrap dealer. But they want to earn a living through their own sweat.

The country will benefit from such entrepreneurial spirit and readiness to work, which may even be leveled up to a tourism draw. Surely it’s better than encouraging dependence on ayuda.