Jacobo Luis

M. Ayala

PS4B MWF 10:00-11:00

Purveyors, Politicians and Populace: The Eradication of the Sari-Sari Store
When I was young I had often ventured out of my house situated in Matina to a nearby
Sari-Sari Store to buy hard-candy, bubblegum or even plastic balloons. Its been such a long time
since Ive seen that Sari-Sari store as it closed after a few years to the point where I cannot recall
the name of the Sari-Sari store or even the name of person who had operated it. As a child, this
was disheartening, as I have gained rapport with Manang, to the point where she would give me
free candy. Before I knew it, Sari-Sari stores all around had started to close and the community
of vendors that I grew up to know had soon vanished, and in their place came shopping malls
and convenience stores. The rapid disappearance of the Sari-Sari stores is correlated with the
development of shopping malls and convenience stores, and the implication of such is of the
utmost importance to understand and is broken down into three parts. The parts being that the
Sari-Sari store is an institution at the mercy of the consumers, the bureaucracy of shopping malls
and convenience stores prevent sole accountability, and lastly what this means in the context of
civil society, power and the state particularly in Mindanao.
One middle-aged woman operated the humble Sari-Sari store located near my house; this
meant that she did the shopping for her products, the selling of her products, ensuring the
security of her products and lastly the bookkeeping of her revenue. Whenever something went
wrong, either with giving a wrong product, expired goods, or defective toy she had went out of
her way to remedy this issue as she had sole accountability for any error. This meant that any
error that she committed would be taken against her store and would lose her credibility as a
Sari-Sari merchant and worse, suffer the loss of customers to other Sari-Sari stores. Losing
customers would mean losing business revenue so indeed, Sari-sari stores were at the mercy of
the consumers.
Shopping malls however are not in a similar situation, they do not completely rely on
singular revenue as they are incorporated and have various outlets. These various outlets allow

shopping malls to continue giving sub-par service without worry of losing customers. This subpar service is also a result of the lack of accountability given by bureaucracy. The division of
labor in outlets unlike the Sari-Sari store, which is usually operated by an individual, raises the
question of accountability. When there is a faulty product that is sold, or an incorrect amount of
change was given, the persons who would potentially be involved are the salesperson, the
supervisor, the manager, the manager of the manufacturer and so forth. And while they are all
trying to figure out who is accountable, the customer is at the mercy of this system.
What does this all mean for the state, civil society and power particularly in Mindanao?
With the emergence of even more outlet malls, convenience stores and the like, Davao city is
becoming urbanized and it will not be long for the rest of Mindanao to follow. With that being
said the economic sector and correspondingly governance of such would follow suit as the
simple barangay being overshadowed by the city government. The government and the economic
sector are interrelated and the similarities just pile up, they are both bureaucratic which lessens
accountability, the constituents are helpless against what they are paying for and even the people
running businesses are even politicians themselves. The power in this case is money, which is
given by the people to an institution which they hope can serve their needs, however the
institution uses this money to create avenues to blind the constituents all the while the institution
is taking their money. The Eradication of the Sari-Sari store is not merely a problem to the
owner, but to civil society in itself.