Organization
Municipal Government of Odiongan
Best Practice Focus Area/s
Leadership, Strategy, Citizens / Customers
Year Implemented
30 March 2020
This is a GBPR Entry
Summary
Odiongan Mercado on the Go was a rolling market. It was created to serve the municipality’s 20 far-flung and coastal areas. The implementation of quarantine protocols and physical distancing limited the number of people allowed to enter the public market. It also resulted in difficulties getting people’s daily market supplies due to limited transportation availability. As a result, local farmers and market vendors had significant challenges in selling their products. The municipality of Odiongan created the rolling market scheme to address unsold market products’ issues and difficulty in purchase, while ensuring that health protocols are maintained and observed. This project was a big win for the farmers, market vendors, customers, LGU, and the whole community. Over the period of Enhanced and General Community Quarantine, the rolling market became the means for people to get their supplies.
Background and Problem
The Municipality of Odiongan was placed under Enhanced Community Quarantine for 45 days and General Community Quarantine for more than a month. Implementing the quarantine protocol in a municipality with more than 16,000 households with only one primary public market was a massive challenge for the local government.
Particularly, farmers and market vendors had great difficulties getting their products to their customers. The number of people allowed to enter the public market daily was reduced significantly. As the foot flow became less, this led to unsold products. Also, public transportation was restricted. This made it more challenging for people to transport their goods to the market and for customers to purchase products. Given the seemingly irreconcilable circumstances of food security and social distancing, the local government of Odiongan had to devise an innovative solution.
Solution and Impact
Their solution was a rolling market scheme called Mercado on the Go. This project was designed to bring the products closer to the people and address oversupply due to items being unsold.
The Municipal Economic Enterprise Development Office (MEEDO) was the office in charge of the overall implementation of this project. However, the project’s smooth operation was due to the stakeholders’ cooperation. This included the assistance of the local market vendors, farmers, drivers, and barangays officials. Notably, system logistics, marketing, and information dissemination were handled by MEEDO, while barangay officials dealt with crowd control.
This project enabled people to purchase goods without traveling an hour or more just to go to the market. Also, this allowed people to save money for gasoline expenses. Also, the systematic operation and smooth logistics of the whole project made it possible for people to anticipate what time the rolling market would arrive, saving them time to do other important work.
Moreover, the scheme ensured that the physical distance was maintained and health protocols were followed. Unlike a public market where there would be many people—making physical distancing a challenge due to limited space, the rolling market made it possible for people to keep their distance from each other due to the open spaces where the rolling markets usually stopped. Notably, barangay covered courts were usually where the Odiongan Mercado on the Go could be seen.
Milestones/Next Steps
This project was a big win for the farmers, market vendors, customers, LGU, and the whole community. Over the period of Enhanced and General Community Quarantine, the rolling market became the primary means for people to get their supplies.
The project was able to generate around Php3.9 million worth of sales for the sold produce. This equated to 11,434 kg of sold fruits, 3,110 kg of sold fish, 2,126 kg of sold meat, 857 trays of sold eggs, and about 9,106 households served.
It became so successful that neighboring towns also asked for Odiongan’s rolling market to serve their people. And soon enough, Odiongan Mercado on the Go was also providing service to another municipality.
Notably, the LGU initially started with only one team, Team Pag-Asa (Hope). But later on, two other teams were formed to keep up with the growing demand. The second and third teams were Team Palangga (Love) and Team Pag-salig (Faith). The three teams were servicing eight to nine barangays every day, which equated to about 300 to 1,000 households.