Vendor struggles amid business slowdown at Manila Memorial Park
Every All Saints’ Day, 71-year-old Carolina Avena goes to the Manila Memorial Park in Sucat, Parañaque City not to visit her dead loved ones but to make a living.
For the past 20 years, Avena leaves her small sari-sari store as early as October 29 to sell candles and arrange flowers in front of the cemetery known for the gravesite of the deceased Aquino couple – former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino II and former President Corazon Aquino.
Normally, Avena would expect to double her money when she invests P4,000-worth of flowers, which she usually buy from a “suki” near the memorial park. But this year, the least she wanted is to recover her capital as business has been slow especially after the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) cleared the sidewalk from vendors like her.
“Matumal ngayon, napakatumal at saka isa pa, kahapon nag-clearing ang MMDA kaya wala kaming benta kahapon,” Avena told INQUIRER.net in an interview on Tuesday.
(The business is very slow this year. And yesterday, the MMDA conducted its clearing operations that’s why we don’t have earnings yesterday.)
“Last year naman hindi ako nalugi noon, kasi may consignment naman akong kandila, naisoli ko yun. Pero ‘di ako nalugi, nabayaran ko lahat ng nakuha ko,” she said.
(I did not lose money last year because I was able to return the consigned candles. I was able to pay everything I got.)
Avena said she was lucky and fast enough to run away from the authorities, unlike the others who had their goods seized and thrown away.
Avena sells a small basket filled with one kind of flowers for P100 to P150, a medium-sized one with three different flowers for around P200 to P250, while a large wreath with chrysanthemums, Malaysian mums, tropical, anthurium, and bromeliad between P600 to P800.
She said the prices of flowers would no longer increase until Wednesday but would go down as the holiday in observance of All Saints’ Day wraps up.
The prices of candles, which already increased by P5 to P10 early October, would remain the same, Aveno said.
But as fewer people visited the Manila Memorial Park this year, Aveno said she may just sell the flowers and candles at a much lower price just to get back her capital. /kga
