DISCUSSION

According to Martinez et.al. (2022), street vendors confront substantial

obstacles & instability during the pandemic as informal laborers. Street

vendors earn on a daily basis and may not have access to savings,

healthcare, or other social benefits. As a result, they can't afford to stop

working in the event of COVID-19 or other disasters. Informal employees are

frequently overlooked in official data and ignored when it comes to policy

making because they are unregistered (Sverdlik, 2021).

This research endeavor was presented by the researchers in lieu of

seeking for the life experiences of the street vendors during the pandemic.

However, in order to fully understand their sentiments during the pandemic,

the researchers first investigate about their lives before the pandemic

happens. The responses from the respondents were later then on analyze

and resulted into four (4) main themes namely; Unrestricted Selling,

Accessibility of Goods, Stability of Income and Costumers and lastly,

Challenges on Weather and Competitors. It was then reported that street

vendors were not restricted in selling in the streets when there was no

pandemic. Chen & Carre (2020) also depicts that street vendors do pay

variety of taxes in the LGU in such way that they can be allowed to sell in the

streets. Furthermore, as they are often unrestricted in selling out in the

streets, street vendors do have a good access to the goods and costumers in

the streets.

WEIGO (2014) and Taishankar & Sujatha (2016) specify that street

vendors provide convenient access to variety of goods and services in public

spaces. Since they are offer lower price goods, those low income people often

patronize them, enabling these street vendors to have more income. Because

of they are allowed to venture and sell their products in accessible places,

thus, they have a sustainable income enough to provide for their family’s

need. Freire, Hoornweg, Slack, & Stren (2018) strengthen this claim by stating

that despite the fact that these street vendors are still impoverished, the

income that they accumulated enabled them to sustain their needs. Although

these street vendors have their good times when there was no pandemic,

apparently, they do have struggles in terms of weather and competitors. Mong

& Sunjolinet (2016) and Arsene et.al (2020) testifies that rainy season has

been both unpleasant and unprofitable to street vendors as they do not have

permanent structure, which is also the claims of the respondents. Sverdlik

(2021) and Wong, Chan & Ngan (2019) claims that street vendors works more

than the regular eight (8) hours a day, which means that they are more prone

to climate-related hazards at work.

As the pandemic hits the world, street vendors are one of the most

affected. According to WEIGO (2020), street vendors claimed that they have

lost 90% of income owing to lower foot traffic. Due to this claim, researchers

have also explored the experiences of street vendors during the pandemic

and have resulted to four (4) themes; Loss of Costumers, Unstable Income,

Restrictions during Pandemic & Good’s Discrimination. Layesa & Flores-

Obanil (2021) stated that lack of public transportations & that people only

leave their house if necessary was one of the reasons why street vendors

have lost most of their customers. Moreover, Kim et. al. (2020), Fairlie &

Fosses (2022) and Wang, Chen, Yue and McAleer (2022) stated that since
the government mandated the lockdown & social distancing to curve the

number of infected cases and has restrict mobility or activity to those non-

essential industries, it limits the number of people who can buy from the

vendors and have affected their income. Moreover, The Business Standard

(2020) also affirms that few vendors have complained that they have been

moved to non-market public areas. World Health Organization (WHO) has

also mandated to restrict those minor and senior citizens from going out as

they are high risk form being infected. These restrictions imposed by the

government have a huge impact to the street vendors as they are dependent

to daily costumers, resulting for them to have an unstable income during the

pandemic.

Martinez et.al (2022), Board (2020), Koh (2020) and Laborde, Martin &

Ros (2020) affirms that the lockdown have created a significant economic

stress with negative consequences for financial security and hunger for street

vendors stating how different is the income of street vendors from before.

Accordingly, ReliefWeb (2020) claims that due to curfews limiting the hours at

work of street vendors and have restricted foot and vehicular traffic, such

restrictions have been a result for the income of street vendors to decline.

Based on the results and the affirmation given by various authors, street

vendors have been greatly affected because of the pandemic due to the

various restrictions imposed by the government. As Cash and Patel (2020)

stated, restricting the mobility of street vendors damages poor people’s

livelihoods & put their lives in jeopardy.

Because of such results and challenges of the street vendors, the

researchers have also investigated about the coping mechanisms of the street
vendors. The analysis of the results for coping mechanisms of the street

vendors have resulted to; Alternative Job, Alternative Selling Technique, and

Government Assistance. State-imposed lockdowns have a significant impact

to street vendors as they have endured a diminution or entire loss of their

livelihoods (OECD. 2021). Because of this, they have ventured into other

sources of income like laboring since their main source of income has been

greatly affected by the pandemic. They have ventured into out of their comfort

zone because as a citizen belonging in a sector that is lacking privileges, they

do not have the assurance that they could survive the pandemic without their

street vending. Moreover, because it is restricted to sell out in the streets,

street vendors have opted to use the online platform as a tool for their

products to sell and to have an income.

According to Word Stream (2021), the pandemic has accelerated the

rate at which people are moving digital. The street vendors greatly expresses

that they have used Facebook in order to post their products and then they

deliver it to the costumers. Furthermore, other street vendors have also tried

selling their products at their neighborhood, trying their luck in earning small

income so that they could by their necessities. Lastly, one of the coping

mechanisms of the street vendors was the government assistance given to

them. WEIGO (2020) affirms that with many street vendors experiencing near-

total customer loss, they stated that the only way to survive was to seek

economic assistance from local communities. However, not all street vendors

affirm that they have received both cash and food assistance from the

government.
Conclusion

The researchers have explored both the life of the street vendors

before and during the pandemic and have concluded that there is a significant

difference with the lives of street vendors. The life of street vendors before

may not be that easy but it is certainly not that chaotic as their life during the

pandemic. They may have experienced struggles and challenges before but

the problems they have faced during the pandemic have harder than it is

before. Specifically, the income of street vendors have been greatly affected

and changed during the Covid 19 pandemic which is the main struggle of the

research respondents.

The Filipinos are known as resilient people and the research

respondents were one of them. The street vendors in this study although were

struggling is continuously trying to come up with solutions to their problems

and unceasingly trying to be positive despite the struggles. They have

ventured into other jobs like laboring and other selling techniques such as

online selling and selling in their neighborhood. Apparently, together with

these alternative sources of income, these street vendors also have gained

help and support from the government assistance given to them. They have

received cash assistance and food assistance from the barangay, local and

national government.

One of the objectives of this study was to determine to whether street

vendors from Digos City received the same privileges and assistance from the

City Government. However, the researchers assert that all of the respondents

stated that they did not have received any assistance or rights before the
pandemic have happen. Although they have received something but it is not

like given to them religiously rather, it was given to them during occasions.

Moreover, those street vendors away from the public market did not received

any assistance from the Office of the City Economic and Enterprise

Management aside from those given from their barangay as they are part of

the other sector of the government but as a street vendor, they have receive

none. Lastly, the researchers would like to emphasize on the struggles of the

street vendors with regards to their location. Even before the pandemic has

hit, they have experienced being tossed and ousted away from their location

despite being able to pay their “arkabala” or rent for their stall. They can be

easily removed from their post as there is no public policy protecting them

from being removed and ousted from their previous location despite them

following the rules and regulations of the local government.

Additionally, the demand side approach which is used in this study,

specifically, the Financial Gains and Formal Economy Failures, have been

explicitly presented in the results of this study. The results of this study clearly

shows why the street vendors continuously try to sell despite the mandate and

restrictions of the government to not go out and sell during the pandemic. The

street vendors knew that the financial gain which they could accumulate is

greater than having none during the pandemic. They knew that if they

continuously rely upon the government, they would have nothing to eat.

Moreover, they are also not part of the formal economy meaning that they do

not have the same privileges and rights than those who belong in the formal

economy.
RECOMMENDATIONS

The following recommendations are made in consideration of the

study’s findings and conclusions:

1. There is a need to create a stable and concrete public policy for the

privileges and rights that is ought to be given to the street vendors

of Digos City.

2. There should be a meeting or open forum for the street vendors to

be held by the government in order for them to be fully aware of

their duties and responsibilities as well as their rights and privileges

as a street vendors.

3. Steps should be taken to improve the locations of the street

vendors operating conditions and facilities e.g., providing clean

protected structures and being able to stay in their locations and not

be easily moved by the government officials.

4. Control and monitoring should principally be carried out through

regular presence of adequately officials to rectify inappropriate

practices.