QUIAPO, NOT A THING OF THE PAST

Christ personifies goodness. He lived a spotless life while on earth; in fact he only lost his cool once when he saw the vendors at the temple. 

"Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out all the people buying and selling animals for sacrifice. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves." NIV

That was a long time ago but if you go to Quiapo, the center of business in Manila, where you will find the Quiapo Church, with the Plaza Mirando in front of it,  you will see lots of vendors  selling all kinds of things -- agricultural produce, even a reading of destiny.  No one drives them away. In fact, there could be more than a thousand of them, luring pedestrians to buy from them. 

And if you look at the grounds of Quiapo you will see a lot wastes -- plastic bags, fruit peels, crumpled paper, 

Now how come after all these years, Quiapo has not turned into a likeable, admirable place for promenading? 

Vendors are in bedraggled clothes - maski papano na lang. They wear worn slippers and shout at the top of their voices trying to attract buyers. 

SUGGESTIONS; 

1. SILENCE I have the idea that a place of worship should have a quiet surrounding and clean environment. It's going to be a no-smoking area and no loiterers, either. 

Shouting for people to buy should be banned. the whole Carriedo street parallel to the Church should have vendors only two meters of vending in the center. The areas right after the gutter should be free of vendors.  

2. Itinerant vendors should be disallowed. Or they should be confined to only one area. 

3. AND EVERY VENDOR SHOULD HAVE A WALIS TINGTING AND A WASTECAN. If one does not obey this rule, then they should not be allowed to sell anything at all there. 

4. Candle sellers should be prohibited from lighting the candles. Customers could buy the candles and enter the church to put them in the proper places inside. Folks,  I don't believe that the prayers said in front of the sellers while lighting the candles could reach heaven at all. The current practice is just pure commercial transaction and nothing more. 

5. Herbal vendors should all be lined up in one place and not scattered all over the place. 

6. All vendors should price mark their products. They should give the least price already. Walang tawaran to speed up the business. 

7. Ukay-ukay vendors should also be confined to one area. Actually some fool the customers claiming their products are brand new. To the new Metro Manila settlers, everything looks new. So to prevent and stop deceptive business practices, the vendors should all be lined up in one area. 

In other words, there should be a categorization of vendors in Quiapo. 

8. Jewelry makers should have a license from the Professional Regulations Commission. By having a license, and their certificates duly displayed, they would not be attracted to deceiving customers of their products. When they say that a stone is genuine, then the customers could always run after them if these turn out to be otherwise. 

If a jeweler cannot fix a ring, he or she should not be allowed to bring it to another jeweler but instead make the customers themselves bring their jewels to the next jewelers. 

I remember having sought the help of a female jeweler, who turned out had a blurry eyes. She brought my ring to another jeweler. Yun pala, pinalitan ang mga bato ng russian diamond. My ring had old stones as it was a gift from my daughter. It is actually difficult to distinguish Russian diamonds from real ones. I presumed that the jeweler must have been truly hard up and so had to resort to nefarious ways. Childless,  she and her husband live on the mezzanine of their stall which is one meter by three meters long. The two meters is reserved for their small canteen offering merienda to passersby. Hay naku, for a measly sum, should I still make bruhaha over that? 

But I could no longer tolerate being fooled. One day,  I asked a jeweler  to goldplate my ring. He got it and put it inside the box of his table. It took him such a long time to do it. Then a woman (spy) came and they talked. when the jeweler gave me back my ring it was no longer the same. So I reported him to the police at the corner of Raon. He was fetched ad was forced to pay me the cost of the ring. After that I was hoping that he would lose his puwesto, but lo and behold, the other day, I saw that he even had a karatula with his name on it written in big font. Sounds like Robin's nickname. 

9. Now, the sermon of the priest in Quiapo is so loud, it reverberates all around the plaza. And it is so irrelevant when all around, is the scenery full of hagglers, buyers, cheaters, fortune tellers, children selling bags, beggars, vendors with their carts selling lumpia, maize and the like. The place looks so unholy, just like when Jesus drove the vendors from the temple. I wonder what Pope Francis would say about this travesty of spirituality. 

No one would feel holy at all in such a place. 

I think that Quiapo should be made more elegant, respectable and admirably a place that has long historical value. Don't we remember that someone once said, if you want the people to hear your opinion, go to Plaza Miranda which is in front of the Quiapo Church and speak out there? That means that people who linger there  really listen to you and analyze your opinions when you are there exercising your right to speak. In fact, every vendor that I have engaged has a mind of his or her own. They could discuss with you for hours and hours. 

I  think that we could still make Quiapo a truly memorable place, not a thing of the past, with greater resolve of local officials to make it so.