Reacting to the inevitable comparisons with more visibly active new mayors, Quezon City’s chief local executive Joy Belmonte says she is a “planner” and a “strategist,” suggesting she prefers deliberation to speed.
Belmonte was apparently reacting to the 60-day timetable set by the Department of the Interior and Local Government for the 17 mayors from the 16 cities and one municipality of Metro Manila to clear all roads from illegal parking and ambulant vendors.
The 60-day timetable, she said, is not a “contest, a 100-meter dash” to show that she is “faster than Mayor X or Mayor Y.”
Instead of clearing city streets in one fell swoop, Belmonte said she will conduct a series of dialogues with some organized vendors’ associations to guarantee their livelihood, and find sustainable and viable solutions to illegal vending.
“That is my style of governance wherein you talk to them [vendors]. You appeal to them,” she said.
“I am a democratic leader, one who has the concern for the people and who gets their sentiments [first],” the mayor added.
While we applaud the mayor’s democratic temperament, she may have crossed the line in seeking her “win-win” situation between motorists and street vendors.
She will not confiscate commodities of illegal vendors, she says, because this would hurt their families.
“It is not to the best interest if these vendors lose their livelihood. We also do not want to give dole-outs,” she said.
The mayor said she is willing to rent out spaces inside private markets even for the first two weeks, look for vacant lots or open a night market to accommodate sidewalk vendors to be displaced by the clearing operations.
“I cannot allow them to lose their livelihood. If I would allow them to lose it, that would be against my policy of self-reliance,” she said.
Then, at a meeting of Metro Manila mayors at the DILG office on Monday, she all but suggested that vendors who occupy a lane along NIA Road in Diliman in her city be allowed to remain where they are because the road “is wide enough as it is.”
“The problem is they’re unsightly. They’re an eyesore,” she was quoted as saying after the meeting. “So what I plan for them is to give them proper stalls, even if I have to give them myself, so they could sell in the area because I don’t think they are an obstruction given the wideness of the street.”
With all due respect to the Quezon City mayor, the wideness of the road is not the issue at all. Respect for the law is.