Magellan's Cross vendors to stay till after Sinulog

Shortly after approving the recommendation evicting vendors from the Magellan's Cross Park, Mayor Tomas Osmeña yesterday granted their request to remain in the park until after the Sinulog celebration.

The vendors yesterday sought reconsideration from the city's Parks and Playgrounds Commission resolution giving them until next week to take down their own stalls or face demolition. The commission recommended for a "no vendor" policy in order to maintain the aesthetic beauty of the park.

The vendors asked that they be allowed to remain there until after the Sinulog celebration so they can still sell the goods they have purposely produced for the Sinulog.

"If that's their only demand, it's easy. It's approved," Osmeña said during his regular conference yesterday. But he said after the Sinulog festivities they will have no more leeway.

"We are a growing city and we want to give opportunities to small entrepreneurs but we need to balance this off with the needs of the rest of the community," Osmeña said.

Osmeña said giving them a relocation site would be more complicated because they would not accept just any area but somewhere they can best sell their goods.

"The relocation of the vendors is much more demanding than that of the urban poor," Osmeña said, adding that there is a "flawed policy in the markets" because they are practicing a "culture of permanence" wherein a vendor wants his children to inherit the business as well as the vending place.

Some of the original vendors said the people behind the problem are vendors who do not belong to the 10 original vendors who were allowed to sell at the park.

In its resolution, the commission said that despite several meetings with the vendors regarding the maintenance of cleanliness and beauty of the park, the park is reportedly dirtier than before.

But the original vendors said they kept their areas clean and it was those who started vending in the park without proper authority who dirtied it. -Joeberth M. Ocao