With the recent clearing and cleaning of the streets for a disciplined city of the country, photos

of the rapid transformation of cleared streets have drawn both criticism and praise online.
Some applauded the initiative, calling it a long-awaited “bath” of the old capital, while others
made callouts to the clearing process, asking how inclusive it actually was.

The 2017 Labor Force Survey showed that the country had at least 15.6 million informal sector
workers (o 38 percent) in the Philippines, contributing to 5 trillion, or a third of the country’s
GDP. Our informal sector is part of what the International Labour Organization reports to be a 2
billion worldwide informal economy, and what is journalist Robert Neuwirth calls a “powerful
force”.

Debates about street vendors and the informal sector have revolved around the use of public
spaces for years now. Many throw arguments on legality (Why encourage something illegal?
Why do they get to skip taxes while the rest of us pay?), the encroachment of public space
(using shared spaces as their own private stalls), and in the case of Manila, the problems of
sanitation, petty crime, and a myriad other developmental issues that have hounded the city
for decades.

There are also generalizations that some street vendors are also drug dealers or part of
syndicate – with Manila and some provinces, this thinking is understandable. But equating the
entire sector to crime is misguided; many street vendors are simply trying to make ends meet.
Their lack of protection, which is provided in formal industries, is worsened by our general
perception, making them all the vulnerable.

“if we deprive street vendors and the informal sector of the use of spaces where natural markets
have sprouted, where foot traffic has increased, and where culture has been created, then we
deprive them of one of their basic rights: Their right to the city.”

In urban studies , the phenomenon of urbanization tells us how more and more people will
stream into our overcrowded cities. With beliefs in the opportunities that migration brings, our
urban environments will be pressured to cater to the needs for survival – and not all means of
this are formal. In the urban website CityLab, studies show that “the number of people will
likely continue to outpace the availability of formal employment.”

The essence of inclusive cities is how we plan, design, and govern for the people who use
spaces. If we deprive street vendors and the informal sector of the use of spaces where natural
markets have sprouted, where foot traffic has increased, and where culture has been created,
then we deprive them of one of their basic rights: Their right to the city.
Street vendors shape our urban fabric

Often judged to be “eyesore” in what many prefer to be manicured landscapes, people miss the
value that street vendors bring to our cities. They encourage foot traffic because of their
transactions, bringing more vibrancy to streets.

Vibrancy helps the local (and also formal) economies thrive. Vibrancy encourages our urban
environments to become more people-oriented, leading to pedestrianization and more
walkable cities.

“Street food,” the documentary series on Netflix, shows us a glimpse of how street food
vendors fare in different countries. In Thailand, pad thai has brought millions of tourist to the
sidewalks, showing how their culture is embedded into the food, and the informality. This is the
same way Filipinos have the concepts os suki, tiangge, tusok-tusok, gilid or tabi-tabi: we have
the familiarity, and we build relationships and trust with street vendors.

A classic example is how Divisoria is celebrated; buyers not only visit the place when people
have festival needs, but when school starts, when a wedding in the family is to take place, or
pretty much anything happens in an urbanite’s life.

Planning with, not just for, street vendors

Clearing streets of vendors has its causes and effects. Motives include the notion to make more
spaces for cars and other motorized vehicles because of the traffic . Top-of-mind “solutions”
look towards relocation. Many would rather have developers build more malls and
condominiums instead of “ugly” kiosks.

But our attitudes on how to plan for our street vendors reveals citizen values – who do we
actually plan for? While inclusive mobility is another big fight altogether (as it echoes, “move
people not cars”), car prioritization, relocation and favoring gentrification (transforming places
to cater to the middle-class, excluding people in the lower-class and in poverty) are all socially
problematic, exclusive and elitist.

Fold informal workers into local governance

Hopefully, for Jun and Aling Mila, and so many other working Filipinos, living in the city would
not mean having to live in fear of being cleared, or being called dirty. Urban writer Tanvi Misra
says simply, and says it best: let’s treat street vendors as “people, not problems.”

Street vendors and the right to the city

When the street vendors in various parts of Manila were driven away in Mayor Isko Moreno’s
campaign, media reports and public reactions alike were mostly glowing with praise. “Devotees
of the Black Nazarene can now properly see its image… without vendors blocking their view,”
read one report. “At last, the law is being implemented!” read one comment on “before” and
“after” images of once –crowded streets.

Of course, there are merits to cleaning up in the city–- just as there seems to be some promise
in the nascent mayoralty of Isko Moreno. I lived in a boarding house in Orosa Street for years,
and having had to walk through Malate every day, I can understand the desire for order and
cleanliness particularly in our capital city. In light of the disillusionment brought about President
Duterte, I can also understand the desire for someone like the good yorme.

I worry, however, about the impact of policies like Moreno’s on the people most affected by
them. While I use Manila as a starting point, evictions of street vendors actually happen around
the world. Just last year, Thai authorities embarked on a similar campaign in Bangkok.

Moreover, I worry about the idea that the poor themselves need to be “cleaned up.” The
mostly laudatory articles, for instance, rarely ask what will become of the vendors, and if the
government has a plan for and with them. Informing this indifference is the problematization of
the urban poor as a liability.

A fuller appreciation of people’s life worlds and informal economies, however, should challenge
the view.

In the first place, as the development practitioner Martha Chen points out, street vendors
actually contribute to the urban economy – for instance, by buying supplies from wholesalers
and selling low –cost goods (e.g. cheap food) in accessible locations. Even if many of them are
below the taxable income bracket and are financially precarious, vendors give various
payments, both formal (e.g. permits) and informal (e.g. bribes to syndicates and even barangay
officials). They are also indirectly taxed through VAT.

To blame the street vendors for the chaos of the city, moreover, is to detract attention from the
failed and inequitable policies that have led to urban poverty and exclusion, not least of which
is the privatization of our public spaces (see Lefebvre 1968). The “mollification” of Metro
Manila and its lack of public parks have meant that the streets are the only space left as a
venue for buying and selling cheap goods; in most cases, these streets were built with cars –
not people – in mind.

All of these points refute the argument that the eviction of street vendors is a mere matter of
implementing the law. Laws and ordinances have a political economy; they come from and
perpetuate particular – mostly elite – sensibilities and interests. As with the dilemma
surrounding informal settlers (see Harvey 2008), we cannot take them out of their political and
socioeconomic context.

Let me be clear: I’m not saying that we should let chaos reign on the streets, or ignore vital
imperatives like security or food safety. All I’m arguing for is the need to place the interests of
the working poor on the same table as those of the rest of the public. As one Bangkok vendor
put it: “They can clean up the streets but please don’t get rid of us entirely.”

This is not an impossible compromise. Tangible steps forward have succeeded in other cities,
such as giving vendors access to public utilities and resources (including food safety courses);
creating fair, efficient and transparent processes to get permits; providing venues for trade (e.g.
Singapore’s hawker centers); eliminating syndicates and corrupt officials; and empowering
street vendors to organize themselves.

To his credit, Moreno claims that he has plans along these lines. I can only hope that beyond
the spectable of a “cleanup,” he will indeed follow through and work with urban planners, as
well as the vendors themselves,to make Manila a model of inclusive development . Evicting
street vendors may hold some political expediency, but mayors who truly care for their
constituencies will recognize and uphold their right to the city.
 Metro Manila Council
MMDA Resolution No. 02-28
Series of 2002

AUTHORIZING THE METROPOLITAN MANILA DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY AND THE LOCAL

GOVERNMENT UNITS TO CLEAR THE SIDEWALKS, STREETS, AVENUES, ALLEYS, BRIDGES, PARKS
AND OTHER PUBLIC PLACES IN METRO MANILA OF ALL ILLEGAL STRUCTURE AND
OBSTRUCTIONS.

WHEREAS, it has been observed that some of the city/municipal streets, avenues, alleys,
sidewalks, bridges, parks and other public places in Metro Manila are not properly utilized by
the road users/public due to malpractices of some unscrupulous individuals who wantonly
utilize these areas for displaying and vending their goods as well as utilizing the same in
erecting some structures for commercial and advertising purpose;
WHEREAS, in the case of “Umali vs. Aquino 1 C. A. Rep 339, the Supreme Court ruled
that “the occupation and use by private individuals of sidewalks and other public places
devoted to public use constitute both public nuisances and nuisances per se”;
WHEREAS,