"Tabo" A Gathering Of Traders From Different Places

Whenever I heard of the word marketplace the first thing came to my mind is groceries, a place where we used to get our daily consumption especially food. But here in Cebu, Philippines, especially in most countryside we have this kind of marketplace that only popped out during specific days depending on the certain place or town. “Tabo” is what most locals call this kind of marketplace wherein most of the traders came from different places and towns. “Tabo” is a Visayan language that means “gathering of traders”. True to its meaning Tabo is a gathering of traders from different places that sells variety of items ranging from hardware tools, kitchen wares to plastic wares and even a variety of clothing items. These traders usually gather in the town’s center where they build their tents which serves as their store at the same time, just like what I will be sharing with this content.

Here in our town Alcoy, Cebu “Tabo” usually happens every Thursday it’s a whole day market day and most traders came early as 5:30 AM to pop their tents out and arrange their items to sell. Well, these traders must have been believed to the saying that early birds catches worms, which I believe in as well. Most of these traders came from the neighboring town of Alcoy such as Alegria, Aloguinsan, Samboan and so on, most of them were from western and southern part of Cebu.

As you can see in the photos, traders used to have different items to sell so as not to confuse buyers which store tent to go to. As you notice the tent from afar sells plastic wares like small basin, pail, dipper, plastic drums and water jags, while the store tent in mid right sells variety of bags from belt bags to sling bags.

But as of last Thursdays Tabo, clothing items were the once sells the most. In fact, three different store tents sell clothing items on that day.

On the other hand, there is this one store tent that sells hardware tools particular for farmers and carpenters. Sure enough this store tent had their first customer, the father and son who’s looking for a good kind of bolo which I assume to be used to their agricultural farm, wherein the main sources of living of most locals of Alcoy is farming in mountainous village and fishing in coastal areas. And it appears that the father and son had already chosen a bolo as the seller was sharpening the bolo that the kid had picked up in the first place, while his father is looking for another bolo.

While on the other store tents had these assorted items on their table just like this photo below. Which I think may give confusion to the buyers. But the good thing is that the items were segregated properly from kitchen wares to school items to manicure and pedicure items which this woman most likely was looking for.

Somehow these marketplace is a physical representation of what the stocks and crypto market as we know, the demand and supply that dictates the price action. And we as the “Tabo” or trader that buys the stock or coin either we sell it or hold it. Anyways, that’s it for today I hope you liked this content, let me know if your place had also this kind of marketplace by leaving a comment below and share it with the community as well.

^{Above photos are all captured by yours truly at Alcoy, Cebu using Sony A6000 with 16-50mm Sony kit lens.}