MANILA, Philippines – Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte had assured vendors displaced by clearing operations and other market stall owners that projects giving them spaces are ongoing.
Belmonte told reporters at the sidelines of the 1st Asia Regional Women Leading Law Enforcement Conference on Monday that aside from temporary areas for vendors driven away from streets, the city government was also looking for areas and other vacant spaces where vendors can sell their goods.
“We’re not trying to prevent them from making a livelihood, we’re just finding a place where they can do it,” the mayor said. “ If we do what we have been accustomed to, the moratorium style, we know that it would be hard to ask them to leave,” she said.
“That’s why it’s better that they understand from the start that it won’t happen this Christmas, and we will be looking for more sustainable and permanent vending sites for them, so that they would not be at the mercy of politicians,” she said.
Belmonte’s assurance came days after vendors evicted from the streets, as part of the national government’s directive to clear roads, were given spaces at a night market near a mall on North Avenue.
Dubbed as the “Sari-Sari Kyusi: The Quezon City Night Market,” the local government sought to give vendors a chance to earn during the Christmas season.
READ: Displaced vendors in QC score 2nd chance with night market
According to the mayor, owners of other private spaces in Quezon City have offered to house vendors — although she insisted that the goal remained to be setting up permanent stalls.
She also shot down rumors that public markets were to be sold to the private sector.
She said the night market has at least 700 vendors and malls and other private property owners had offered their lots as sites for vnedors.
“We are now in the process of ironing out the nature of our agreements but there’s a search for legal or permanent place for them to sell goods,” the mayor said in a mix of Filipino and English.
“I just want to assure the vendors that gossips about markets being privatized are not true, these are for the people,” she said.
“We will make them bigger, we will put parking slots, and we will ensure that all of them are accommodated,” the mayor added.