MANILA, Philippines – Early this month, we visited Boracay not necessarily to be a tourist but to try to find out what vegetables and other farm products the island resort needs, and where are the usual sources?

We gathered that most of the vegetables are coming from Baguio and other places like Mindoro, Cagayan de Oro and not so much from the much nearer towns in Aklan, Capiz and Iloilo.

One of the big suppliers of vegetables to Boracay is Rolly Cabil whose base of operation is in Caticlan, a barangay of Malay town to which Boracay also belongs. Caticlan has become some sort of a commercial center where the airport for small planes is also located.

Rolly, a former OFW from the Middle East, used to operate his vegetable trading with a brother in Roxas City. However, seeing the opportunity in Boracay, he transferred to Caticlan early in 2010. It is interesting that 80 percent of his merchandise comes from Baguio.

He has a brother based in Baguio who takes care of buying vegetables and sending them twice a week to Caticlan. One truck contains about 20 tons consisting of cabbage, carrots, potato, sayote, pechay, cauliflower, broccoli, lettuce, cucumber and some others. The truck stops at Divisoria in Manila to pick up some spice crops like native onions from Ilocos, garlic, and some others. The next stop is Taal, Batangas where the truck loads some more native onions and eggs (usually 20 crates containing 360 eggs each). From there, it goes direct to Caticlan through the Roro. The ten-wheeler truck which is dispatched in the morning of Wednesday from Baguio reaches Caticlan in the evening of the following day, Thursday. Rolly says it costs him P4 per kilo for the transport.

And what is the backload of the truck to Baguio? Sometimes it is scrap for recycling. Sometimes it is watermelon from Iloilo.

Aside from Baguio, Rolly orders some of his merchandise from Cagayan de Oro such as squash, and ginger from Dadiangas. Sometimes, he gets his tomatoes from Mindoro. Interestingly, he does not have suppliers from the nearby towns in Aklan. Perhaps, somebody should start producing vegetables commercially right in Caticlan and surrounding areas.

In Boracay, we were able to interview Grace Patron at the Boracay Talipapa where she has been selling vegetables in the last 15 years. She can sell P10,000 worth of vegetables a day in a stall which she rents for P1,000 a month. She sells a lot of Baguio vegetables supplied by traders. Her four other sisters are also manning their own stalls in other places. Business is good because there are lots of establishments catering to the tourists, both local and foreign.