Today, urbanization has been considered as one of the primary keys for societal development and progress. As a result, many people congregate to cities and urban areas in search of better opportunities and
quick money. However, not all individuals who migrated to trade centers can equally reap its fruits. As an effect, many individuals engaged to sidewalk vending (www.researchgate.net)

However,Most deprive street vendors and the informal sector of the use of spaces where natural markets have sprouted, where foot traffic has increased, and where culture has been created, then we deprive them of one of their basic rights: Their right to the city (www.cnnphilippines.com)

Often judged to be “eyesores” in what many prefer to be manicured landscapes, people miss the value that street vendors bring to our cities. They encourage foot traffic because of their transactions, bringing more vibrancy to streets. Vibrancy helps the local (and also formal) economies thrive. Vibrancy encourages our urban environments to become more people-oriented, leading to pedestrianization, and more walkable cities.

These arguments against the informal economy deepen the wound of inequality and injustice all the more, instead of uplifting vendors and informal workers from a state they are already persecuted for — one “cleaner” day for the middle and higher classes is one day of “starvation” for someone in poverty. If we cleared these vendors without affordable houses to live in, or relocated them to places where their markets did not exist, they would naturally gravitate towards places where their opportunities serve them better, which is back to the streets of Manila.

Planning for informality is very challenging, but doable. Dialogues work, but including vendors in planning, and learning about their needs are better. Providing dignity of space through stalls that have access to clean, public restrooms, trash bins, and dedicated spaces that encourage safety are some ways we can factor in our street vendors into the urban setting.

Understanding and addressing the dynamics of informality is not unique to Manila, or even the Philippines alone. But valuing the potential of the sector by treating vendors as partners is strategic.

In a World Resources Institute report, there are three steps that are recommended to make street vendors and informality work in cities:

1. “Increase access to public utilities, spaces, and resources;

2. Revise laws that have excluded informal workers in the past, and institute ones that actively include them;

3. Fold informal workers into local governance.”

Moreover, the Philippine government has established An act to protect the rights of the sidewalk vendors. It's time for us to hear them.

http://www.congress.gov.ph/download/14th/hb04978.pdf