Police authorities arrested ambulant vendors near the Philippine Embassy inside the Diplomatic Quarter (DQ) in Riyadh on Sunday, detaining them for four hours.
One of vendors was a 53-year-old named Simon Reyes.
“They picked us up at about 12 noon and asked us to dump the bottles of mineral water and food we were selling into a drum. They said ambulant vendors are not allowed to sell inside the DQ. We were not released till 4 p.m.,” Reyes said.
Reyes and another vendor, 50-year-old Teresita Sapno, were trying to cash in from the large numbers of Filipinos queuing at their embassy seeking to rectify their job status or depart the Kingdom before the July 3 amnesty deadline.
Reyes said he was distraught to have been forced to forgo a large number of bottled mineral water and food, which amounted to more than SR 1,500 worth of money. He noted that they had been selling snacks and refreshments for two weeks prior to their arrest.
“For an ordinary worker like me, the amount involved is big. With that capital, I was making quite good money as profit, which I could send to my children in Cebu City,” he told Arab News.
Reyes said that he and Sapno were brought to the police headquarters inside the DQ where many other inmates were detained.
“Our fingerprints were taken. We were also asked to sign a document in Arabic. I presume the document said that we should not sell mineral water and food inside the DQ anymore,” he said.
Reyes is an illegal worker who is in the process of correcting his status so that he could continue working in the Kingdom after finding a new sponsor.
In Jeddah, Filipinos are also cashing in from compatriots lined up in front of their consulate to obtain the necessary documents to avail of the grace period.
However, a source from the consulate, said their number has decreased because of the competition.
“More vendors means lesser profits for each,” he said.
Police arrest vendors outside Philippine Embassy
