A three-day fair featuring local products at Fora Mall has reinvigorated the retail sector in Tagaytay City which suffered from the border restrictions over the past six months.
Tagaytay City had shunned city guests, even day-trip travelers since March for fear of exposing upland dwellers to the threat of COVID-19 infections.
Cognizant of the need to help the economy bounce back, the city government and Filinvest Land Inc. agreed to host the 20th edition of the DTI Bagsakan Sales Fair on Oct. 9 to 11. At the opening of the event, Trade Undersecretary for trade promotions Abdulgani Macatongan called on consumers to be the new “buy-ani”.
“Being the new hero does not require us to sacrifice our lives. We can be a hero for others, for the economy, if we continue to support local products. So we urge everybody to eat local, buy local and travel local,” he said at the sidelines of the event.
The Tagaytay fair is the 20th Bagsakan event organized by the DTI-Bureau of Domestic Trade Promotions and hosted by prominent mall operators like Filinvest Land.
The three-day fair featured products and small businesses from Cavite, Laguna, Rizal, Bataan, Metro Manila, Sorsogon and Samar.
Among the participating micro-, small- and medium enterprises from Cavite that participated in the event were Alexie Lily Farm Enterprise, Cafe Amadeo Development Cooperative, Crooc Agri Tourism, Delfa’s Food Products Inc. and Dhelightful Creations.
Laguna MSMEs included Cocoplus Aquarian Development Corp., Jhaz Footwear and Patricia’s Food Manufacturing. Rizal sent two participants—Cut N Shape Crafts Manufacturing and Glofon Herbal Medicine.
Bataan has the most number of participating MSMEs, including Amanda’s Marine Products, Beakries House of Goodies, Gloria’s Delicacies Gracielo’s Cashew Nuts, Magpoc’s Araro Cookies, Ruthy’s Food Processing, Terio’s Food Products and Tess Enterprise.
Ma. Delza’s Native Product was the lone participant from the NCR while Jacildo’s Handicraft represented Samar. Sorsogon brought two–Cerra Furniture and Isla de Mazita’s Enterprises.
The Bagsakan Sales Fair was a concept borne out of the ruins of the pandemic and the need to bring stalled MSMEs back to the fold.
Conceived at the parking lot of the DTI, Bagsakan started out as a small “tiangge” fair organized by the BDTP a few months after the strict lockdowns was eased to help small businesses recover from the crisis.
Macatongan reiterated the DTI’s call to consumers to support Philippine products and “help each other out to conquer this crisis.”
“Instead of buying imported goods, foods, and wearables, let us support local MSMEs. We have good quality consumer goods and even better quality fruits and vegetables,” he said.
He said events like the Bagsakan Sales Fair emerged as a new marketing tool for the DTI to slowly and effectively help MSMEs mainstream their products through mall exposure.
The DTI has organized 20 Bagsakan fairs in a span of three months, three of them were hosted by Filinvest Lifestyle Malls in Cavite. The Fair also encouraged 11 regions to participate.
Meanwhile, Filinvest is looking at having a dedicated area inside Filinvest malls where MSMEs can display and sell their products, free of charge.
Filinvest hosted the three-day sales event at Fora Mall. This marked the third time the company hosted sales fairs for the DTI promotions group during the pandemic.
Filinvest senior vice president for mixed-use and retail business Joselito Santos said the company is eager to assist the department in hosting trade and sales event that will help small entrepreneurs prosper.
“Giving exposure to MSMEs, having them come and sell from our malls is also beneficial to us. We hope that events like this will encourage more people to go out of their houses to spend and get the economy going,” he said.
