MMDA clears CCP complex of vendors

More than 80 stalls built within the Cultural Center of the Philippines complex in Pasay City were demolished in a clearing operation conducted by the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) yesterday.

Merlyn Palomas, president of the Federation of CCP Vendors and Bike Operators Inc., said that around 149 members of their group were left jobless after their stalls located in Plaza Ulalim, were knocked down starting 9 a.m. yesterday. Palomas lamented that they have been in the area for the past 30 years.

She claimed that CCP president Nestor Jardin and other officials told her in a meeting sometime last year that the stalls would be included in a "master development plan" being conceived for the complex. "That is why we were surprised that we are now being driven out," Palomas said. The vendors sell fruits, ricecakes, chips and other snacks to promenaders.

The CCP complex includes a variety of isolated establishments — the theater, a hotel, a theme park, a mass concert venue and a convention center. Earlier, CCP officials bared a development plan to transform the country’s symbol of Filipino heritage and the arts into a commercial hub.

Palomas said that they will make an appeal to the CCP management. She added they are now planning to stage a picket outside the CCP office protesting the demolition.Vendors tried to stop the demolition but no one was hurt.

Jardin denied, however, that the vendors are part of the development plan.

"We support the initiative of the government through the MMDA to clean up the metropolis. Historically, the CCP has always been envisioned as an arts and cultural complex, a safe place for the general public from all walks of life and tourists to enjoy," he said in a statement issued to the media.

"Unfortunately, itinerant vending and illegal dwellers inside the CCP complex are not part of the CCP Complex master development plan. We do have a place for them, when the time comes, a tiangge type area. But this will have to be organized, clean and orderly."