DAVAO CITY – A day before the yearly celebration of Philippine Independence Day, Diego Recta, 27, carried mini Philippine flags to sell early morning on Saturday along Quirino street.
He has been roaming with other vendors in the city since June 1 selling flags to provide food for his family. With P350 or less that he earns from selling, he sets a budget for his family’s daily consumption.
He lives in Barangay Sto. Niño, Tugbok District, Mintal, Davao City and travels to Dacudao area to pick up the flags to sell it for P45 to P60 depending on its sizes. They remit P15 for every flag and the remaining income will be their earnings.
When Recta is not selling flags, he said he would travel to different places outside the city where there are fiestas.
“We would sell character balloons,” he said.
Recta finished a vocational course in electronics. And he said he finds applying for jobs a waste of time.
“I would rather use my time making money for my wife and our four-year old child,” said Recta.
“Sariling sikap raman mi, wala na mi naghulat ug trabaho gikan sa gobyerno basta makakwarta mi ug makapakaon mi sa among pamilya (We rely on our hardwork and we don’t want to wait for the government to provide us job. Because our concern is to earn money to feed our family),” he said.
But Recta said, he still wishes all jobless people will be provided with jobs by the government.
According to the recent Labor Force Survey released on Thursday, June 9, the unemployment rate in the country in April 2016 was estimated at 6.1 percent.
The regions with the highest unemployment rate is the National Capital Region at 7.7 percent, Ilocos Region at 7.5 percent, Calabarzon at 7.5 percent and Central Luzon at 7.1 percent.
Among the unemployed, 63.2 percent were males. Of the total unemployed, those aged between 15 and 24 years old comprised 50.1 percent while the age those aged 25 to 34 years old comprised 28.3 percent.
Meanwhile, majority of the unemployed were high school graduates with 31.4 percent, 23.1 percent of the unemployed graduated from college and 13.1 were college undergraduates.
Recta said despite the days he had to spend roaming the downtown area to sell Philippine flags, he still finds happiness in the thought of reminding the public of the significance of the Independence Day.
“People nowadays are wondering why we are still selling flags and it seems they have forgotten about the occasion,” he said. (With reports from Janika Mia Tiempo and Jennica Diaz/davaotoday.com)
