Tibaldo: The Marketplace as a Heritage site that Reflect its Citizenry

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

IT HAS been said that marketplaces are considered as the second home to many housewives. Being the center of commerce of a town or a city, I believe that the marketplace serves as a heritage site that mirrors and reflects its people’s culture and society. To many tourists and visitors who are new to a certain locality, the market place has always been a usual unquestionable destination.

When I was still probably wiping my nose with my elbows, I remember observing many occurrences and activities other than buying and selling food items and the like in the Baguio market. There used to be a zoning system at the city market that delineates or divides the whole place into selling sections. There were sections designated for Carinderia, flowers, shoes, tobacco, jeans, meat, fish and poultry, vegetable and the like of which the most prominent were the souvenir sections where one can find gifts and pasalubongs. There were places designated for segunda mano or used clothings and a PX section where one can exchange dollars to pesos. I missed the spot where comic magazines were hired and read on the spot by aficionados.

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In the different interior towns of the Cordillera, we see the continued socio-cultural and economic exchanges especially during designated market days when traders from as far as Batangas reach remote villages to trade various items from cooking wares to garden tools. Hand woven fabrics from the Ilocos and dried fish from Pangasinan are also sold in the uplands during town fiestas.

Like in many places in Europe or in North America, we have our own version of flea market or swap meet in the form of our Ukay-ukay stores. A flea market or swap meet is a type of bazaar where inexpensive or secondhand goods are sold or bartered. It may be indoors, such as in a warehouse or outdoors like a garage-sale or under a tent. I have seen the flea markets in Ermita, when I was studying in Manila and merchants trade various items for tourists and the visiting US navy personnel. Said flea market included antiquated paintings that were actually left baked in rooftops and spilled with coffee to appear aged.

Filipinos living and working abroad who want to buy rice and native delicacies can now shop in the growing number of Pinoy stores in the US and in Europe. Today, we see more variety of souvenir items like the miniature Sarao and Francisco Jeepney, the sorbetero and the calesa in our superstores and these are ideal giveaways to our hosts and friends whenever we travel to foreign lands.

In some of my foreign tours, I was dismayed to find many collectible items that were actually made in China. I have nothing against our giant neighbor but even the Tiki souvenir icon that I bought in Honolulu was made in China and so with the key chains that my wife and I collected from our foreign travels. I am now of the opinion that the cheapest souvenir items can be had from every country’s Chinatown stores wherever there are. I still treasure the items that I bought from Japan like the porcelain Shisa Lion of Okinawa and facemask from Tokyo.

For a Baguio boy who stayed in this city and reached the age of 50, I wish that the city government would consider the development and improvement of our market place. A market place should be an ideal place not only to buy things but also to reflect on the people’s culture and history. I look forward to seeing the small island garden between the shoes section and caldero section where I used to shine shoes cleared and cleaned. The stunted Bottle Brush trees or Weeping Willows are still there with only their tops showing reaching out in a race for space with the number of stall that occupies what used to be a resting area. Let us make Baguio’s public market what it used to be…a place not only for commerce but a heritage site where Filipinos and foreigners alike can safely get what they deserve in terms of services and without any hazards whatsoever from the prevailing problems that are present today.