BOLANTEROS NO MORE?: Original ambulant vendors to get ‘Super’ floor

By Rjay Zuriaga Castor

ILOILO CITY – More than 200 ambulant vendors, or bolanteros, will be moved to the third floor of the Iloilo Terminal Market this August under a city plan to give them permanent selling space.

The vendors previously operated at the market, popularly known as Super, before its redevelopment.

Local Economic Enterprise Office (LEEO) head Maricel Mabaquiao said the transfer answers concerns raised by the Federation of Iloilo City Public Market Vendors, which said the participation of bolanteros in the city’s scheduled night markets had cut into the sales of regular and legitimate vendors.

“On the third floor, they will have their own space and tables. Yes, they can sell there every day. That is our proposal, and the schedule is this August,” Mabaquiao said Monday, Aug. 17.

Under the proposal, the bolanteros may sell inside the Terminal Market daily from 7 p.m. to 4 a.m.

Mabaquiao said the schedule came out of consultations held with legitimate vendors before the plan was drawn up, and that those vendors suggested moving the bolanteros indoors to draw shoppers into the building and past other stalls.

“We had a consultation before we will implement this … We are still studying how we can arrange and accommodate them on the third floor,” she said.

“We actually asked our legitimate vendors, and they suggested the schedule that we will implement. It also came from them that it would be better if the bolanteros were inside because customers would enter the market, go up to the third floor, and also pass by other stores inside the market,” she said.

She described the arrangement as a “balanced business” approach for both groups of vendors.

Regular vendors have reported reduced sales because of the presence of bolanteros outside the market, she said.

Sending shoppers to the third floor would route them past ground- and second-floor stalls on the way up, which the city expects to benefit stallholders and ambulant vendors alike.

The vendors covered by the plan are those listed in the LEEO database who were already selling at the Terminal Market before it was modernized under the city government’s partnership with SM Prime Holdings Inc., alongside the Iloilo Central Market.

The two markets reopened in late 2025 after a redevelopment worth roughly PHP 3 billion, built by SM Prime under a public-private partnership at no cost to the city government and expanding stall capacity at both facilities.

After the reopening, the city stepped up enforcement against unauthorized vending under the Market Code of 2009, which bars the sale of goods within 100 meters of a public market. The rule left bolanteros with no legal place to stand outside the buildings they had worked for years.

Mabaquiao said new bolanteros have emerged since the two markets reopened, but the city government will prioritize the original vendors on the LEEO list.

Once the permanent space is in place, the original bolanteros from the Terminal Market will no longer be allowed to sell in other public markets.

The city government earlier established Market Day, a scheduled selling program that allows accredited bolanteros to sell legally in various public markets on designated days.

Original and legitimate bolanteros from other public markets may still sell during the designated market days of their respective markets.

Bolanteros from the Jaro Public Market, for instance, may continue selling on the market’s Thursday selling day, known locally as Huwebesan.

Mabaquiao appealed to bolanteros and regular vendors to abide by the arrangement so that ambulant vendors are not displaced and the livelihoods of regular and legitimate vendors are protected.