Business takes a beating with quarantine in effect

AFFECTED: Pedestrians stop to rest outside a closed mall. —EDWIN BACASMAS

From noodle and watch repair stalls to car wash shops, beauty salons and boat rentals, small businesses are taking a heavy beating from the coronavirus pandemic as quarantine measures come into effect in Metro Manila and elsewhere.

Shopping malls, along with their tenants, and other big businesses are also adversely affected as quarantine and curfew regulations drive away consumers and patrons.

In Metro Manila, several malls are shuttered until further notice, but their tenants, such as banks, hardware outlets, supermarkets and grocery stores, restaurants with food delivery services, and drugstores are still open.

“Without people, it’s hard to do business,” PNB Securities said in a research note on the impact of mall closures, underscoring foot traffic as the lifeblood of malls.

While the owners of malls are expected to weather the storm, it may not be so for small entrepreneurs should the virus infect a large portion of the population and claim more lives.

Now that Metro Manila is under quarantine, Danilo Bulak, who is engaged in the “pares” and “mami” food business in San Juan City, closed one usually profitable stall near City Hall, where most of his patrons are working.

On Sunday evening, he shut down the remaining stall on P. Parada Street with half the meals still unsold.

Bulak and other small entrepreneurs in San Juan and the cities of Mandaluyong, Pasig and Manila are incurring huge losses during the first two days of the lockdown as the virus threatens to spread rapidly.

Repair shop closed

In Barangay Palatiw in Pasig, working student Jorlan Descipulo, a part-time watch repairman, was forced to close his small shop, a major source of income for his household of seven, including his mother.

Losing a daily earning of P500 would make his family dependent on food donated by neighbors, Descipulo said. “But it’s not enough. We have to consume it slowly as we do not have any source of income anymore.”

In Tondo, Manila, couple Aisa and Rem Yamzon, who own a small parking area for rental, said they had already lost 80 percent of their income after nearby schools and establishments shut down.

Aisa said she still needed to operate to pay the minimum wage of her workers.

In Mandaluyong, Aaron, who declined to give his full name, said earnings from his car wash business declined by 20 percent.

Income from his water refilling business, however, rose by more than 30 percent.

Three of his workers at the water station had tried to leave for the province but decided to stay out of fear for lost income, Aaron said.

Weddings canceled

In Manila, several weddings have been canceled, adversely affecting caterers, restaurants and hotels, waiters and event planners.

Fr. Regie Malicdem, Manila Cathedral rector, said around 20 weddings scheduled for March and April had been canceled and rescheduled for later this year.

In Taguig City, particularly at the Santo Niño de Taguig Parish Church, a number of weddings have also been postponed, according to Fr. Cris Magbitang.

In Calasiao, Pangasinan province, it was eerily quiet in the building where Roselyn Hilomen, 49, runs her beauty salon.

On Monday, Hilomen said the typically packed shops around hers were mostly empty. If not for her one customer that day, she said she would think that people had deserted the neighborhood.

In the past years, Hilomen said students would swarm her boutique to have their hair and makeup done as schools would usually hold proms and graduation ceremonies this month. But the provincial government had canceled these events in the face of the pandemic.

She said it was the first time that her business had slumped and became worried about losing her only livelihood. “During typhoons or floods, we still had customers. But now, we’re on the verge of losing them all.”

Boat operators

In the City of Alaminos, also in Pangasinan, some 1,000 boat operators and workers will lose their source of income as the local government is set to close off the Hundred Islands National Park (HINP) on Wednesday, said Rose Arguello, the city’s assistant tourism officer.

Some 700 boats will be idle at the HINP-Lucap Wharf this summer, considered the peak season of visitors.

Arguello said the number of visitors dipped to 377 during the weekend from an average of 2,000 before the virus scare began.

In Bataan, beach resorts, hotels and tourist destinations in Bagac and Morong towns were among those that have been hit hard, as they were ordered to stop admitting guest from other places.

—With reports from Yolanda Sotelo, Tonette Orejas and Greg Refraccion 

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