While much of the country was tuned in to the President’s State of the Nation Address (SoNA), ice cream vendor Robert Monterde found a different reason to be thankful on Monday — a spike in sales thanks to the early morning crowd of protesters and rallyists.

Monterde, who usually sells his “dirty ice cream” near Philcoa along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City, said his cart was already half empty before noon — an unusual occurrence for a typical weekday.

“A lot of people bought early, many of them joining the rally,” he said in Filipino. “It’s rare that my cart is this light by lunchtime.”

He credits the rally, staged hours before the President delivered his annual address, for drawing in the foot traffic that helped boost his business. On most Mondays, he said, it would take until late afternoon to sell the same amount.

“Good thing there’s a SoNA. Otherwise, today would have just been another slow start.”

Monterde, however, admitted he didn’t know much — or care much — about what the SoNA was all about. For him, like many others in the informal economy, the focus is survival: earning enough to feed his family and send his children to school.

He belongs to a growing group of informal vendors who rely on street-based selling to make a living. Often without formal employment or benefits, these workers face daily challenges such as weather, law enforcement crackdowns, and competition for foot traffic.

Yet many, like Monterde, persist through hard work and resilience.