Right to road space

Yesterday kicked off the month-long observance of the annual Yuletide season or Christmas as the global Christian community calls it.

While the prevalent atmosphere and mood on the streets is usually one of festivity and cheer, it’s also marked by fatigue due to the shopping frenzy fueled in no small part by the merchants in malls and in the streets who ramp up their sales efforts in a collective bid to end the year on a profitable note.

Aggravating the holiday fatigue of course is traffic congestion which stares one right in the face as soon as he or she walks out of the home and into the asphalt streets and concrete roads of Metro Cebu.

For me that means walking past B. Rodriguez Avenue in front of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City where several vendors and taxi drivers have taken up residence since July this year.

While they have been told by Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña to vacate the area last July, it was only last month that he gave the vendors until this month to permanently leave the site ahead of the Sinulog in January next year.

I guess the mayor was giving the vendors time to earn enough money not only for their Christmas and New Year feasts but also to cover their moving out expenses.

But for a lot of pedestrians already inconvenienced by their presence, the deadline could not come soon enough. I share their sentiments because not only do they deny road space to the commuters, these vendors and taxi drivers act as if they own the place already and aren’t answerable to anyone else.

Ever since Osmeña issued the deadline, sidewalk vendors can only be seen sporadically in the sidewalks along VSMMC along with the taxi drivers who already have their own parking spot near the Cupsi Laboratory Center for Women’s Health Inc. near the provincial hospital.

Last time I checked, these vendors and taxi drivers usually show up along the sidewalks at B. Rodriguez Avenue late at past 10 p.m. during weekends and on paydays every 15th and 30th of the month.

When a demolition team arrives to clear the sidewalk, these vendors would confront the personnel and scream at them, telling them to go to hell since they aren’t disturbing anyone and are only there to earn a living.

I doubt if any passing pedestrian would risk confronting the vendors on the inconvenience they caused to anyone passing within the area, but if someone did, they are just as likely to receive a mouthful from those vendors, a lot of whom are women with kids in tow.

A former American soldier who wrote a book about his stay in Japan made the observation that the Japanese usually interpret the term “understand” to mean “agree with” and told about how he would get stared at by some Japanese bigwigs when he tells them that while he understands their position, he doesn’t agree with it.

I guess the same thing can be said about Filipinos, who may erroneously interpret people saying that they understand their plight or what they stand for to mean that they support or agree with their position.

While a lot of people may understand why the vendors or stall holders have to earn a living, that doesn’t mean they tolerate or unquestionably accept whole hog the rationale or need for the vendors to occupy a sizable area of road space at their expense.

I quote a favorite expression used not only by vendors but mass transport operators and drivers in justifying their demand for road space or fare rate increase respectively: “magsinabtanay na lang ta (let’s come to an understanding).”

To me that expression can be taken both ways; one, it’s an appeal for understanding and two, it’s a period to a sentence as a way to end an argument.

It suggests that rather than question them, we should accept their presence and demand as a matter of reality, move on and let things be even if it constitutes a constant inconvenience that can develop into a serious problem if left unattended or allowed to fester.

The vendors and stall holders should be reminded that while they have every right to earn a living, that right doesn’t in any way, shape or form give them blanket authority to rob the pedestrians of their right to road space which continues to shrink by the day due to overpopulation and the growing number of buildings that are being built every year.

I just hope B. Rodriguez Avenue is cleared of vendors by the time the Sinulog rolls by.