Cebu City PROBE: Colon, Osmeña Boulevard still a ‘no selling zone’

Look! No street vendors on this sidewalk on Colon Street, Cebu City. CDND PHOTO / Gerard Vincent Francisco

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City Prevention, Restoration, Order, Beautification, and Enhancement (PROBE) team has warned sidewalk vendors who were cleared from Colon Street and Osmeña Boulevard against returning to their original spots after the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) has completed  their inspection.

PROBE chief Racquel Arce  said that Colon Street and Osmeña Boulevard would remain to a “no selling zone” because the vendors displaced in this area were properly relocated to the Tabo sa Banay at the F. Gonzales Street and to the Senior Citizens’ Park fronting the Cebu City Hall building.

The PROBE team said they caught at least three vendors attempting to return to their old spots on Colon Street and they were cleared immediately.

“Dili gyud sila pwede mobalik kay naa na silay relocation site na. Bisan mana ang 60-days sa DILG, di gyod gihapon pwede mobalik sila,” said Arce in a phone interview on Wednesday, October 9, 2019.

(The vendors cannot go back because they were relocated. Even if the 60-days deadline of the DILG has lapsed, they cannot go back.)

If a registered vendor in Cebu City attempts to violate the “no selling zone,” the vendor will be suspended from selling in his or her relocated spot in the city, depending on the number of times he or she commits the violation. A fourth violation would mean the vendor could no longer sell again anywhere within Cebu City.

In other city streets, such as Magallanes, Sanciangko, and B. Rodriguez, the vendors are strictly regulated by PROBE especially on the size of their stalls, which needs to remain at two-feet-by-two-feet.

Arce urged the public to be more patient in these streets because the city could not clear them out without a proper relocation site, which is still being arranged by the city government.

Arce affirmed they received reports that pedestrians are having difficulty in passing through these streets again with vendors again occupying most of the sidewalk after the DILG assessment on October 5, 2019.

Arce said that the public may report any violating vendor, whose stalls have gone beyond the regulated size, and report to PROBE those who put up obstructions on the sidewalk so they could be apprehended.

She reminded regulated sidewalk vendors that they are not allowed to put up big umbrellas, or use liquid gas for cooking, or share the space with another vendor. /elb