Iloilo City, my hometown of two decades, is regarded as the country’s “City of Love” because of its culture of warmth and hospitality. Yet within its borders, that love seldom reaches those who need it most. To the rest of the Philippines, it is seen as a role model—a “global leader in sustainable urban development.” Ironically, for its most marginalized citizens, the very qualities that supposedly make Iloilo City different are also what render it indifferent.
Nowhere is such indifference more apparent than in the lives of ambulant vendors, locally known as bolanteros, residing near the Iloilo Terminal Market. Every Ilonggo family is familiar with the hustle and bustle of crates being unloaded at dawn, bargaining voices overlapping one another, and the sea of buyers searching for the day’s cheapest goods. Although imperfect, the coexistence was steady and dependable. Vendors had a reliable source of income while consumers had access to affordable prices. This way of life had long been embedded in our culture, passed down and sustained since time immemorial.
However, this endurance began to rupture in 2022 when the city government entered a public-private partnership with SM Prime Holdings. In a span of a few years, spaces that stood firm for decades were transformed anew. In their place rose polished corridors, regulated stalls, and curated retail spaces—all in the name of modernization and order. While these changes were framed as necessary progress, they came at an unnecessary cost. Formal stallholders were prioritized within the modernized facilities, while many bolanteros were confined to the margins—restricted, relocated, or excluded altogether. Those who had long depended on the market for their livelihoods were now treated as “disruptions” in a system they had been a part of for generations.
Mayor Raisa Treñas attempted to strike a compromise through a “Market Day” system that assigned the vendors rotating time slots across different markets. While the policy provides a regulated window for trade, survival is not a shift to be clocked so easily; it is a relentless, 24-hour struggle that does not wait for its turn on a timetable. If a city truly “loves” its most vulnerable, that support cannot operate on a schedule. By forcing vendors to constantly move between locations, the policy disrupts their access to regular customers and predictable foot traffic, compromising the stability they depend on.
Tensions peaked last April 10, when a clearing operation escalated into a violent dispersal after vendors resisted the confiscation of their goods amid rising economic pressure. Many, from behind screens and the comfort of their homes, were quick to say that the vendors should have just “followed the rules.” But such responses overlook a deeper truth: the vendors are not choosing disorder, they are responding to economic desperation. What is the moral currency of a law that protects the pavement but punishes the pedestrian? It is a bitter irony that these are the very people who fueled the electoral campaigns of those in office. Having traded their votes for half-kept promises, they are instead left with half-filled stomachs.
Some citizens and authorities may argue that these measures are necessary to maintain order in an urban environment. However, experiences from other communities demonstrate that regulation need not come at the expense of livelihood. In Singapore, informal vendors, known as street hawkers, were gradually integrated into government-built hawker centers, where many are provided permanent stalls, subsidized rents, and proper sanitation. Quezon City has also implemented designated vending zones that allow informal vendors to operate within regulated areas rather than restricting access to narrow time slots. While Iloilo City has also designated vending areas, reports from bolanteros suggest that these remain limited, overcrowded, and increasingly constrained following market redevelopment and stricter enforcement, resulting in conditional access to livelihood rather than security.
If Iloilo City intends to live up to its name as the “City of Love,” that identity must go beyond a rhetorical slogan and into its most meaningful expression—that is, genuine care for all its citizens. A city cannot claim to love its people when love itself becomes a commodity not everyone can afford. When modernization and urban renewal prioritizes aesthetics over people to induce progress, they fail this test of dignity. Progress remains hollow when safeguards and policies for the livelihoods of those disrupted by the process are neglected. Governance, therefore, must move beyond enforcement-first approaches and instead build systems that do not merely include people in theory, but actively acknowledge their place in the community. A city, after all, cannot call itself progressive if its idea of progress only carries a selected few forward while leaving the vulnerable behind. If love is what my hometown claims to stand for, then it must first redeem itself to those it has failed to love the most.
