Town shields producers from wily middlemen

A municipality in northern Quezon has found a way to shield handicraft producers, native wine makers and other local entrepreneurs from unscrupulous middlemen.

Officials created the Mauban Product Development (MPD) as a marketing arm that will bring locally made products direct to the buyers, thus bypassing the traders.

“We just want our local businessmen to maximize their gains from the fruits of their endeavor,” said Sherwin Raca, officer in charge of the agency in Mauban town.

The MPD buys colorful hats, bags, baskets, slippers and other items made from buri palm leaves; creatively designed house decors from different varieties of seashells and nito (forest vine); and local wine, popularly known as nipanog (distilled from the fermented nectar of the toddy palm).

Rich resources

Mayor Fernando Llamas said the coastal town was making other products as it is “endowed with rich marine and forest resources just waiting to be tapped.”

Mauban, 157 kilometers southwest of Manila, faces the Pacific Ocean on the east side and the vast Sierra Madre mountain ranges on the west.

Local producers of tourism-related products are paid in cash after passing the in-house quality control officer of the MPD, said Raca, 32, who is an educator by profession.

“My office, in turn, will be the one to sell the products in the market at no padded cost,” he said.

Unfair trading

Raca said he would often discover that products made in Mauban were labeled in the market as coming from other towns. “It’s unfair to our people,” he said.

The situation changed when Raca’s office opened for business in September 2010, funded by proceeds from the sale of bottles of nipanog given to him by the local government.

“There are still some middlemen, but they could no longer dictate the price like what they used to do in the past. The local producers depend on us for pricing,” Raca said.

To reach wider markets for Mauban products, the MPD regularly participates in trade exhibits in Manila and elsewhere in the country, and constantly upgrades the quality and designs of the goods to increase their competitiveness.

“We’re now reaping the fruits of our development efforts,” he said.

Better quality

Raca cited the owner of a popular resort in Palawan who placed an order for Mexican type hats made by Mauban  weavers. Balikbayan entrepreneurs are exporting the handicrafts abroad, he added.

He said the MPD often consulted with the Department of Trade and Industry on how to enhance the market potential of the products in terms of packaging, design and presentation.

The office now maintains a pool of local weavers of buri products which it supplies with raw materials on credit, Raca said. It also provides wine producers with empty bottles, he said.

“I borrow one of the local government vehicles when buying empty bottles in Calamba, Laguna, and other raw materials in Divisoria (Manila),” he said.

The most popular in the product line is the bottle of nipanog that contains a piece of ginseng root (believed to be an aphrodisiac) which also grows in Mauban.