Tiangge

In the two recent deadly explosion-related incidents that happened in Metro Manila one after the other, there is one common venue where there were crowds in both. The blasts, not related to one another, took place in or near a tiangge. Consequently, the number of fatalities and the injured victims were high.

The first incident was the Oct.19 explosion in the Glorietta-2 in Makati City. The blast emanated from a basement stairwell covered with concrete slabs that provided floor space for a tiangge inside the mall. At least 11 people were killed and more than 100 others were injured, most of whom were serious and underwent surgery. After one month of investigation and analysis of foreign and local bomb experts, the Philippine National Police (PNP) last week declared their conclusive findings that it was no terrorist bombing but it was caused by a “gas explosion” at the Glorietta-2 basement. The Ayala Land Inc.(ALI), which owns and partly operates the Glorietta malls, is still disputing the PNP results and insisted that their own experts believed otherwise.

In the Nov.13 bombing attack at the Batasan Pambansa in Quezon City, an improvised explosive device (IED) was concealed in a motorcycle that was parked at the south-wing near the lobby where lawmakers and guests are picked up by their vehicles. Beside the south-wing, there was an on-going tiangge, an annual affair by the employees of the House of Representatives. The IED explosion was triggered by a cellular phone when the suspected target of the bomb attack, Basilan Rep. Wahab Akbar, appeared at the lobby. Akbar, along with three other House employees, were killed instantly while 14 others were seriously wounded. The fragments of the IED and the cellular phone were later recovered around the blast site by police and post-blast investigators. Thus, the PNP were able to quickly conclude a few days later that it was a terrorist bomb attack.

It is rather unfair on the part of the Ayala spokesman, Alfonso Reyes to denigrate the PNP findings on the Glorietta-2 investigations by citing their “own experts have ruled out methane or diesel as the cause of the explosion.” I don’t think even the most suicidal home-grown terrorists here have reached the kind of sophistication in bomb-making or IED-making to carry out the Glorietta-2 blast using untraceable chemicals or bomb components. In the Batasan explosion, the media hogs among our politicians in Congress have at least left to the PNP to conduct its probe without delay.

Whether it was an accidental gas explosion as in the case of Glorieta-2 or the IED blast at the Batasan, the crowd-attractive tiangge was in the middle of this series of very unfortunate incidents. Because of possible breach of security as eyed in the case of the Batasan blast, the annual pre-Christmas tiangge that used to be held right inside the Malacañang Palace garden was moved to Mendiola, the street across the administration building. The two-week Tiangge sa Malacañang, which ended last Saturday, is organized yearly by the Malacañang Employees Cooperative.

In rough translation, a tiangge could be a crude term for a “flea market ” or “bazaar” as members of high society term it. A “flea market,” as defined in the dictionary, is an outdoor market at which antiques and secondhand articles (as furniture, pottery, or jewelry) are sold, especially from parked vehicles. A “bazaar,” on the other hand, is defined as an Oriental market place that usually consists of rows of shops or stalls where all kinds of goods are offered for sale. It can also mean as a fair for the sale of useful and ornamental articles especially for charitable or religious ends.

I experienced going to a genuine “flea market” when we had a tour of the Loire Valley during our press junket in France last month. It was a Sunday when we passed through Loire Valley where we saw the “flea market” set up in a wide open grassy space in what could be the town plaza’s parking lot. Many of the items being sold there, I noticed, were used or second-hand items like house decors, kitchen products, old-looking stuffs that looked like antiques and sold to as low as one Euro (or this is worth about P65 or $1.50). I did not buy anything valuable enough for me to take home as souvenir. That was my excuse.

An example of bazaar was the one that the Department of Foreign Affairs held yesterday at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City. It is actually an annual pre-Christmas sale of international products that the DFA holds as a fund-raising activity with the help of the spouses of the diplomatic corps. The proceeds of this one-day event go to benefit charity foundations.

In Philippine setting, the original concept of a tiangge is a small version of a market where housewives and low-income shoppers can buy vegetables and fruits, meat, fish and other agricultural products sold in push carts, makeshift stands, and in sidewalks gathered in one place together.

Now, tiangge has evolved into something more fashionable or sosyal because you can find them in the middle of malls frequented by high-income shoppers and even by foreigners who flock to this kind of modern-day stalls selling varied consumer goods and wares, most of them imported products from China, Taiwan, Bangkok and Malaysia. I just don’t know how much of these imported wares were smuggled.

They are cheap because these products, most likely than not, enter the country without paying duties and taxes. At least, these small and medium sized entrepreneurs are no longer operating in the underground economy but surely the owners of these tiangge stalls pay some taxes.

For bargain-hunters like us, we can get fair quality to good products at the most affordable prices in a tiangge. The products sold in our modern-day tiangge range from household items to food products, apparels and shoes, bags and other accessories, ornamental items, toys, cheap watches and fancy jewelry, among others. If we have the money, tiangge is a good source to buy Christmas gifts.