LOOKING beyond sidewalks and selling space, Iloilo City’s ongoing tension between ambulant vendors and market stallholders is a test of whether local governance can truly balance competing rights — or whether policy, however well-intentioned, tilts decisively in favor of those already within the system.
City Hall is correct in asserting the need for order. Regulations exist to ensure public safety, ease of movement, and fairness among those who have invested in formal stalls, paid fees, and complied with ordinances. These stallholders, after all, are legitimate entrepreneurs whose rights deserve protection. Allowing unregulated vending to proliferate unchecked risks undermining not only urban order but also the viability of formal businesses that sustain the city’s economic base.
But governance is not merely enforcing rules — it is applying them with an understanding of lived realities.
The recent clearing operation along Fuentes Street has exposed a painful truth: for many ambulant vendors, compliance is not a matter of defiance, but of survival. These bolanteros are not faceless violators of the law; they are small-scale traders who bring produce from towns like Cabatuan, often bought on credit, hoping to earn enough each night to feed their families.
This is where the city’s Market Day scheme comes under scrutiny. While designed to impose order and provide equitable access to vending spaces, its current one-day allocation appears grossly inadequate for vendors whose needs are daily, not occasional. A program that offers only intermittent opportunity cannot realistically sustain continuous livelihood. Worse, it risks creating competition and conflict in already limited spaces.
The question, then, is unavoidable: is the current policy framework inadvertently biased toward formal enterprises?
The redevelopment of public markets and the structured allocation of stalls have undeniably benefited registered vendors. Yet, the same system seems to leave little room for those operating on the margins — those who lack capital, access, or the means to formalize their trade. When enforcement is swift but accommodation is insufficient, the result is not fairness, but exclusion.
This need not be the case.
A truly equitable approach would recognize that both sectors — formal and informal — are integral to Iloilo City’s economic ecosystem. Rather than treating ambulant vendors as a problem to be cleared, the city must see them as stakeholders to be managed and integrated. This means expanding vending zones, increasing the frequency and accessibility of Market Day schedules, and ensuring that designated spaces are not only available on paper but viable in practice.
Equally important is the manner of enforcement. Discipline and order must never come at the expense of due process and humane treatment. Clear communication, prior notice, and respectful engagement are not signs of weakness — they are hallmarks of good governance.
Iloilo City has long prided itself on progressive leadership and people-centered policies. This moment calls for that same spirit — not just in words, but in action.
Balancing the rights of stallholders and ambulant vendors is not an impossible task. It requires nuance, flexibility, and above all, the political will to ensure that in the pursuit of order, no one is pushed further into the margins.
A city that protects only those within the system risks losing those who are struggling just to enter it.
