La Presa Strawberries And Vegetables Being Sold At The Baguio City Public Market?

If you are to take a stroll along the booths that are selling fruits and vegetables at the Baguio City Public Market, you can get a grasp of the lively competition among the vendors. The battle to get the attention of customers plays out from early morning to the hour the shutters go down.

From offering their goods at discounted bundles to giving out free tastes, the vendors make use of various gimmicks to earn the good graces of their customers. A more recent gimmick involves using the name of a fictional place from a local television series in the hope of getting the attention of tourists.

Some vendors have resorted to using La Presa signs, tags, and labels on their goods. Sitio La Presa is the fictional setting of the ABS-CBN television series Forevermore. In reality, the place is Sitio Pungayan in the town of Tuba in Benguet. The popularity of the series has turned the place into an overnight tourist destination. During the holidays last year, thousands of tourists trooped to Pungayan causing traffic and commotion in the area. More of said tourists are expected to flock to the sitio when the Panagbenga Festival kicks in come February.

Strawberries at the Baguio City Public Market with a sign which implies that the berries are from La Presa.

However, some Baguio and Benguet residents are questioning the vendors' strategy of putting La Presa signs over the fruits and vegetables they are selling. It's a valid question because isn't the act the same as the all-too-common misleading strategy of selling imported oranges and grapes with labels like "Sagada oranges" and "Sagada grapes"? Why sell a bunch of grapes as "Sagada grapes" when these aren't even from Sagada?

If you've been to Sagada and you've seen the oranges being farmed there, they are very different from the plump, large and perfect-skinned "Sagada oranges" being sold at the Baguio market. Sometimes, said "Sagada oranges" can be seen being taken out from boxes with either Chinese or Japanese labels.

This practice at the Baguio public market begs the question, "Is it okay to allow the vendors to keep on with such practices?" Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.