VM Rama on the clearing of roads
I will yield this space to the privilege speech delivered by Vice Mayor in the Sanggunian session last Tuesday:
“I rise on the issue of the clearing our streets of vendors, taking into account the gamut of Calalang versus Williams (where the) Supreme Court found occasion to dwell on a provision of the 1935 constitution which read: “The promotion of social justice to ensure the wellbeing and economic security of all people should be the concern of the State.”
The lawyers in this August body, will tell us that in 1940, the Supreme Court defined Social Justice as the “humanization of laws and the equalization of social and economic forces by the State so that justice in its rational and objectively secular conception may at least be approximated”.
Even before I became a councilor in 1992, there were vendors on our streets and sidewalks. They were migrants from far flung towns and neighboring island provinces. Most, if not all of them, did not own real properties when they came. Most, if not all of them, did not have sufficient capital to start business with. Most, if not all of them, did not have proper education with which to combat poverty. All of them however were possessed with remarkable industry and inexhaustible patience. They were not indolent. When they came to our shores, the only place they could find to make a living were our streets and sidewalks. Under the stifling heat of the sun or drenched by punishing rain, the city’s hordes of Street vendors bore their goods on their shoulders or carried them on improvised wheel barrows.
Our street and sidewalk vendors constitute our underground economy. They do not possess the kind of corporate structures the millionaires invest in. But, what is most unfortunate is that they do not get any direct support from government. While their direct contribution to our revenues may not be that big, the state and that includes our local government has not done our constitutionally mandated duty of humanizing our laws for our vendors to approximate social Justice.
Roads are part of public domain and they are beyond the commerce of man. In theory, street and sidewalk vending are legal taboos. One cannot sell his merchandise on the streets and so the directive of President Rodrigo Duterte to clear the roads of vendors is obviously anchored on solid legal footing. The Memorandum Circular 2019-121 that puts the deadline yesterday whence all roads and sidewalks are freed of vendors has to be followed.
The lawyers amidst us will tell us that our constitution prescribes that no person shall be deprived of his life liberty and property without due process of law. Chief Justice Enrique Fernando wrote in the case of Philippine Blooming Mills that the right to life ranks first and foremost in the hierarchy of constitutionally guaranteed rights. It is not difficult to say that the entitlement to livelihood underscores this right to life. This is superior to all rights. Deprive someone of his livelihood and you in effect deprive him of his life.
These are the interests that need balancing. The right of the vendors to livelihood needs to be balanced against the right of the people to orderly traffic. We are meeting a deadline to clear the roads of all obstructions but we have to find a place where to build a market for those displaced. It must not just be a relocation site. Today i am told that the relocation site is another road and so what will happen? It will come to pass that they might again be evicted because public domain is beyond the commerce of man. I am envisioning a permanent market that vendors can plan their future with.
Today our Street and sidewalk vendors are driven away from our roads because that is the law. But question is “are not vendors entitled to what the constitution says - Social Justice? What can we do to balance the interest of the public in using the public domain without the kind obstructions imposed by vendors on one hand and that of promoting the economic interest of vendors on the other hand? To me, this is an opportunity for us to pass an enduring substantive law to humanize the laws and balance perceived conflicting interests. It becomes our duty to focus on this concern to craft ordinances where salus populi suprema est lex.”
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