A TOWN market’s dynamism is characterized not by its infrastructure, but by its constant motion, rapid economic exchange, and deep human relationships. These unique and lasting bonds are built through years of engagement, particularly every Tabo, where the vendor and suki endlessly transact business, further cementing their distinct connection while spontaneously swapping snippets of their respective lives. Imagine that!
This vitality cannot be found in air-conditioned supermarkets with fixed prices and pre-packaged goods. Oh no, it doesn’t exist there! There are seldom meaningful human interactions in supermarkets, where everyone is in such a hurry that even the “freshie” senior citizens are given hard stares by the “veteran” senior citizens for sitting comfortably on the allocated senior citizens’ seats.
A mercado, like the Baclayon town market, is a living ecosystem fueled by real-time negotiation, fresh supply chains, and community ties. That’s why a mercado forms part of the intrinsic fabric of the town.
And so, one Tabo day, we went to the town market and engaged some of the vendors in candid conversations.
For over ten years, forty-one-year-old Gigi Profecho Cardinas has managed her stall in the town market, providing local families with rice, dry goods, and basic consumables. She represents three generations of market trade – her grandmother, micro-entrepreneur Aniceta “Sitay” Ugat, sustained a restaurant in earlier years.
Her family was offered a stall when the restaurant strip in an earlier layout of the market was demolished. This single stall feeds Gigi’s family and built their home. Fortunately for her, her string of customers (suki) from Barangay Payahan and nearby Pamilacan Island is loyal.
She opposes the planned privatization and relocation due to the inevitable displacement it will cause. Because she sells the same products found in modern shopping malls or retail chains, privatization would force her to add a markup to her prices. If her prices rise, very few customers will continue to buy from her. Moreover, the proposed relocation site is some distance away from the present mercado and much warmer – factors that will drive patrons away, as customers naturally gravitate toward cooler, more convenient spaces.
Gigi will likely set up a small store in Barangay Payahan, where she lives, if the market is privatized. It will not make sense to keep the same business in the same vicinity with a retail chain as a competitor.
Lucila “Angging” Bonsay is a fifty-seven-year-old fish vendor who has sold fish in her market stall for over thirty years. She is a second-generation vendor, following in the footsteps of her mother, Praxedes Plaza. Angging lives in Poblacion, Baclayon. Income from fish vending covers her family’s food, rice, and baon for the children.
Angging sells fish along the sidewalk when it gets quiet in the mercado. It is her way of bringing the goods closer to the customers later in the day.
Angging opposes the plan to move them to the fish port, which is farther from the road. The distance and location will make it harder for her and other vendors to sell.
For the couple Aileen Omac and her husband Isabelo Omac, meat vendors who have operated a stall in the town market over the past eleven years, the mercado has also opened entrepreneurial opportunities for their siblings and cousins, who have also maintained stalls.
They would like to stay in the town public market. Of course, they are open to private establishments in Baclayon, but the public market must remain operational.
The couple expressed that the first hearing was not a consultation and was more about informing the people of the plan. “Sakit sa dughan sultihan ka mag-swap ug lahi nga negosyo” if relocation to a new space fails to work for them.
Meanwhile, consider senior citizen Ruel Ladaw, a shoe repairman who sits by the stairs of the main entrance of the mercado during Tabo. His grandparents came from Baclayon, but he lives in Loboc. He has been repairing shoes for more than thirty years, including six years at the Baclayon town market during Tabo. He is open to the move but is concerned about the permanent vendors and stall owners at the town market who will be displaced.
For Lisa Capangpangan, who has been selling gulay, such as, kangkong, bago, and nangka at the town market for more than 10 years – which she and her neighbors plant themselves – she is fine being relocated. She uses a table to display her produce and pays a P10.00 ticket per Tabo. However, she is concerned about the others with permanent stalls who will be uprooted. Lisa’s income has allowed her to provide food for the family, including baon for the children.
Having written several articles about Baclayon, lived in the town on several occasions, and even went to Tabo myself, it does not make any sense that a town market championed by genuine, enterprising Baclayanons – who have helped shape the community’s vibrant spirit and live and breathe the signature way of life of Baclayon – will be marginalized to give way to a decision that to me lacked thorough public consultations and disregarded legal provisions protecting heritage structures. It is utterly disrespectful and violative of the rights of the very people these town officials are sworn to serve.
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The author owns and manages Belinda Sales Communications Consulting. You can reach us via email at belca.87@gmail.com. Engage with us on X @ShilohRuthie./PN
