Jose Pungyan worries how he would sell his durian amid the bomb threats and demolition of sidewalk vendors. (davaotoday.com photo by Medel V. Hernani)
By MEDEL V. HERNANI
Davao Today
Davao City– Bomb threats here have affected not only major business players but also vendors in the city’s public market whose sales dipped of late.
“Ang mga tawo nangahadlok moanhi sa palengke tungod sa balitang pagpamomba ug pagbuto sa bomba sa duha ka dagkong mall. (People do not come to the market often because of bomb threats, especially after the two malls were hit),” said Jose Pungyan, a durian vendor at the sidewalk of Bankerohan Public Market.
Even though he’s selling durian for as cheap as PhP20.00, bomb threats have reduced his gross earnings to as low as PhP1,000.00, an amount that could not even cover for his daily working capital. He bought the durian in far-flung Calinan at P8,000.00.
He said he only receives around PhP 100 to PhP 150 a day from his sales.
At 50 years old and retired from his work for 21 years as a security guard, Pungyan just started vending durian last February.
Pungyan graduated from a two-year course in 1985 of Industrial Electricity from Ateneo Livelihood Outreach Program in Partnership with National Manpower and Youth Council. He only got to apply his course when he was hired as electrical maintenance worker in City Hall right in 1986. But he lost his job two years later with the change of administration, as Mayor Rodrigo Duterte took the helm as the new city mayor in 1988.
Pungyan found his way to the Black Arrow Security Agency and stayed in the agency for 18 years, then transferred to another agency for the next three years. His earnings as a security guard helped sent his two children to school until college.
He said his livelihood is tough. Aside from the bomb threats, he and other vendors have to deal with the city government’s demolition team that drove away poor vendors like him from the streets.
“Dungagan pa sa pag-demolish sa mga sidewalk vendors, asa na man mi moadto niani? (Add to that is the demolition of sidewalk vendors, where do we go from here?),” asked Pungyan.
Since July, authorities have cleared sidewalks of vendors who violate the two-third, one-third policy—a local ruling that permits vendors to occupy one-third of the sidewalks, the rest for pedestrians and remaining space as open sidewalk.
About 3,200 vendors reportedly attended the city government’s consultation with them last August. Demolitions by some 50 city personnel have been conducted against these vendors.(Medel V. Hernani/davaotoday.com)
Davao City bomb threats, Demolition team, durian
