The incident between a mall security guard and the sampaguita vendor shows that private property is more important in a capitalist social order.
By Rev. Fr. Delfo Canceran, OP
The mall occupies an ambiguous place. It is both private since it is owned by the Sy family but, at the same time, it is public since people can access the place. The security guard is the instrument of securing the place.
The student selling sampaguita enters that ambiguous place not to mall but to sell at the mall entrance. In that case, the student occupies a misnomered place invading the place since she is not malling but selling. The student then is considered a nuisance by the security guard.
Although the student only stays at the stairs going to the entrance of the mall, she occupies a strategic place for her purpose of selling her sampaguita. The people will surely take the entrance of the mall and so she can sell her flowers to the mallers who will possibly buy.
The security guard is pointing her to go to the road and sell there just like her companion. The road is outside his function. But she refused and remained. There is resistance on her part. But the guard grabs her sampaguita and rips it thinking that he may drive away the student.
The security guard is doing his job and the student is also making her living. I suppose that they both belong to the poor classes of society. The security guard needs his job to survive just like the student working to survive. They are both working for survival.
The scene represents the conflict of place occupying ambiguous meanings. The student finds meaning in that place since people frequent the mall, so she can sell her sampaguita. She stays in that strategic place at the mall entrance.
The security guard sees to it that the entrance is freely flowing among mallers. The student is a hindrance since she obstructs the way by selling to the mall goers. He then drives away the student to open the flow of the entrance to the mall.
The entrance place is therefore connected with a free-flowing movement and an opportune time for selling. The student considers the security guard as a hindrance just as the security guard regards the student as a hindrance too. They create meanings from their own position or location. Thus they quarrel as the people look and pass.
The problem is bigger than the scene. It is linked with private property of a commercial place. In capitalism, private property is legal. The private property becomes more important since it is a commercial place. Commercial place is lawful. The security guards enforce the law and safeguard the place. #
