"Tindahan sa Bangketa" -- Selling and Struggling in the Street of Life

Filbok! (Filipino Vocabulary)



"Bangketa" (Bang-ke'-ta: noun) -- sidewalk. This may also be used to describe the sides of any street or pathway. In popular Filipino usage, this word may be used to denote a sidewalk stall or store.



"Tindahan sa bangketa" (compound noun) -- sidewalk stall or store. People who set up sidewalk stores or stalls are usually called sidewalk vendors.



Notes for pronunciation: In the Filipino language, the joined letters "ng" sounds like the "ng" in the word "song". Apostrophies in the syllables denote slightly prolonged pronounciations in those syllables, along with a slight rise in intonation.


July 6, 2009, 11:34 AM. Anyone who would like to explore downtown Manila on foot would have their ears bleed with the continuous roar and bleeps of cars, jeepneys and buses enroute to Quiapo, Lawton, Quezon city or elsewhere, gag, choke and sneeze with noxious clouds of dust and exhaust fumes, and bewildered with the comings and goings of thousands of feet going to and fro in the busy streets. With my Nokia 3230 in hand (ready to shoot photos) and squinting in the bright noonday sun, I took a dust-caked flight of stairs, reached the overpass spanning the ever-busy Quezon Boulevard and shot this busy noon-time scenery of the vicinity of Morayta -- the place of which you'll have to call out to the errant jeepney driver for you to reach Professional Regulations Commisions (PRC), or if your studying at nearby Far Eastern University. This vantage point was just filled with sight and color, alive and throbbing with the energy of downtown Manila One good note for the first time visitor: at a time like this, make sure to have an umbrella in one hand, a handkerchief in another and a chewable candy in your mouth or you'll haplessly pass out in the streets -- noontime to 3:00 PM is not for the queasy minded or faint-hearted. But if you can weather things out, you may eventually enjoy things here.



This is the same pedestrian overpass from which I shot the photo you see above. I have to take the tortuous flight of stairs for me to reach the other side. And you'd see the slogan painted by the city administration promoting urban cleanliness, with the 3 words using the 3 letters that make up the mayor's surname ( L-I-M after Mayor Alfredo Lim, the incumbent mayor of the City of Manila) "Linisin, Ikarangal Maynila" (which means "Clean and Honor Manila"). However, things do not seem as they seem to be! For upon first sight you see a pedestrian overpass -- a resort from the hot sun and lashing rain, and of course, the only recourse to prevent yourself from becoming roadkill. But as soon as you climb up the stairs and reach the top, the bridgeway also serves as a bazaar! The bridgeway turned into a bazaar!

I reached the top and saw that one entire side of the bridgeway was turned by vendors into a long continuous shop for trinkets, headbands, earrings, finger rings and other jewelry and accessories! Vendors had resorted to this for sensible reasons; people crossing the overpass can buy anything that may catch their eye as they pass by-- they can stop by and buy (geddit?!? "by" and "buy" ?!? Another rhyming thingy!!! Naaahh, forget it!!) These shops know their customers well, since this overpass lands right smack in the middle of the University Belt -- a place in Manila peppered with universities and colleges -- and college students may take the time to buy anything that may take their fancy as they pass through this place.

Oh yes, before I forgot, even right before I went through this overpass, I took this scenery of a more simple, more humble setting. Right after exiting PRC, I passed by one of those several small impromptu shops selling candies, biscuits, crackers and cigarrettes -- perfect for anyone who either cannot truly afford to eat at the fastfood chains in this place, or simply just in a hurry to go somewhere -- they can simply buy a candy either for 1peso apiece or 3 pieces for 2 pesos, to kill hunger and time.

In the Philippines, these small shops or stores are simply called "tindahan sa bangketa" or simply "bangketa"-- sidewalk stores or stalls; they are stores distinguished simply by the place on where they are set up -- sidewalks! They open at the crack of dawn and close up at night. Some of them had crafted their sidewalk shops in a way that when closing time comes they simply lock them up along with their goods and furnishings (of course, bringing their earnings with them!) safely under lock and key, or under cord and plastic canvass awning, to prevent thieves from nosing in. Some of them just fix, clean, chain and leave their empty stalls behind. But some vendors do the arduous ritual of bringing everything with them, trudging them home either on foot, on wheels (on small wooden carriages) or carrying them as they ride on other vehicles like jeepneys, buses and the like. -- only to return to the same corner in the morning, setting up shop and arranging their goods just at first light of day, and dealing with the customers amid the roar, the smoke and dust of the city streets -- they do this arduous migration day in day out

I usually take the metro train of Manila, commonly known as LRT (initials for "Light Rail Transit). The south-bound LRT ends at Baclaran, a district in the city of Paranaque. For years on, Baclaran is famous for its venerable Shrine of the Mother of Perpetual Help, this LRT station, and mostly, for this -- a scenery of organized confusion, the melee' of trade happening right under the LRT railways. I shot this photo right before going down the flight of stairs and surfing through shop-filled streets to buy native oranges -- which I bought for 10 pesos apiece (I bought five) -- from where? From a row of "tindahan sa bangketa" devoted to selling fruits! Side-walk stalls can organize themselves into entire zones devoted to selling a particular kind of merchandise. RTW's ( or "Ready To Wear") clothing may be bought at stalls in the middle of the street -- right underneath the support columns of the LRT railways. You may get a sassy piece of dress at lower prices, practically lower than when you purchase something similar in some city mall! Stalls selling foodstuffs may be bought at the stalls at the foreground. These "bangketas " in Baclaran however, are located in the middle of the bazaar that marks Baclaran as one of the biggest bazaars in Metro Manila.

The "tindahan sa bangketa" has become an annoyance to some, especially the city management, who think that sidewalks are simply for pedestrians, not shops. And as you can see, the abundance of these sidewalk stalls and their customers had virtually closed the street from traffic -- much to the annoyance of jeepney drivers and other vehicles destined for Sucat, Las Pinas and Muntinlupa, who try to navigate through this tortuous street. Occasionally, some "conventional" shop owners, pedestrians, and other "concerned individuals" think that these sidewalk vendors are simply too much -- citing reasons that some of them run their businesses without proper city licenses, that they contribute to the hurly-burly disorderliness of the city, others raise concerns that sidewalk vendors sell "fake" goods or smuggled goods and that their stalls invite pickpockets or holdappers who prey on the customers. Due to this, but mainly for the idea of maintaining the "cleanliness and disciplined orderliness" of the city, the MMDA (which stands for Metro Manila Development Authority) occasionally -- and ruthlessly -- root out these "tindahan sa bangketas" from the street, sweeping down on them like a massive broom, demolishing entire stalls, nabbing and confiscating goods, destroying merchandise with unabated cruelty -- amidst the heart-rending screams and sobs of storeowners who have nothing else other that their stores to go about in their daily lives -- all in the name of "maintaining cleanliness and disciplined orderliness" of the city streets.

Why not set up shop in the local flea-market (or in Filipino, "palengke"), or why not set up shop at home? Ask any sidewalk vendor this question and they may give you the same answer -- " . . . because this is where the money flows good", " I earn here and the business is good"-- and they may also reason out, occasionally," If I do not do this, what will we eat tonight?". Practically speaking, just like any store owner who depends on the business, these sidewalk vendors virtually depend on the relatively modest earnings of their shops to go by their daily lives. They may also give you the answer, "I am selling things here so that I can send my children to school", "I'm doing this for us to help my husband with the household income" and of course, "I have to do this, to make ends meet" -- usually the electric and water bills, the house rent, and of course, food and matriculation. They have to ekk out a daily living from their little stores for them to go about their daily lives -- and it is notable to mention that most of them come from the massive social class located just below the poverty line. Their lives and their business at street give us a small but striking picture of their daily struggles in life, all in the name of family.

A note of comment and suggestion to the MMDA and the other people who are legally obliged to maintain the disciplined orderliness of the city streets. The reasons for you to keep the streets of Metro Manila clean and orderly for vehicular and pedestrian traffic may indeed be true -- and you may have indeed done a good job doing so. Some of the ideas that you have and may have been explained you about the sidewalk vendors may indeed be true . BUT IT DOES N'T MEAN THAT YOU HAVE TO DRIVE THEM AWAY LIKE SCOUNDRELS IN THE STREET! They may be stubborn, hard headed, borne out of years of struggling in the street for them to earn their daily bread. BUT YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DESTROY THEIR LIVES AND THEIR LIVELIHOOD! Consider this, that at the end of the day, or at least 3 times a day, an MMDA sidewalk clearing employee and a sidewalk vendor eat the same plate of rice to stave off hunger. Instead of destroying their stalls or confiscating their goods, why not relocate them somewhere else, somewhere much more agreeable, for both pedestrian, customer and of course, sidewalk vendor alike? Why not set up a special place for sidewalk vendors to sell in peace instead, to remove them from the streets where there will be no objections raised? Relocate them in a market perhaps, or create a totally new marketplace, easily accessible for commerce to progress, or if not, arrange their stalls in a way that they may not look forlorn but instead may give them a more dignified look? I am suggesting a sort of collaborative bargaining agreement here.

Thus this is story of the sidewalk vendor, they trudge on two feet with every peso they earn on the same street, struggling to keep apace selling in the streets of life.