Tips for Buying Baguio Blankets

The December chill is in the air… temperatures in Baguio City have dropped to 11.8 degrees Celsius! This is so not funny. For your reference, air conditioners in Manila only go as low as 18 degrees and folks already find that too cold. Of course this is nothing compared to January this year but I find that two blankets are no longer enough these days nights in the City of Pines.

So I figured it’s the best time to do a feature on the cheap blankets available in Baguio. And when one talks about blankets, most folks know that the best place to get them is at the Baguio City Market. But only the locals can tell you where in the market to get them cheaper, of course. And this is the whole point of this post — insider tips on buying blankets in Baguio City, Philippines.

From the time I watched Narda Capuyan on TV in a commercial about her life (remember? the one in the late 80s where, as a young girl, she was told to bring her blankets all the way to Candon in Ilocos Sur and on foot, too? I think it was a Development Bank of the Philippines commercial about small entrepreneurs that they were helping grow big) I always saw the city as THE source of blankets.

As we all know, Narda Capuyan has made it BIG, exhibiting and selling her weaves worldwide. Her designs are all original and although there are cheap imitations in the market, the quality of her work is unparalleled. She has a showroom on Upper Sesson Road and a stall at the PEZA bazaar until December 31. (more about that bazaar in the next post)

A Filipina visiting from the US once commented that in the Philippines, one can never get a decent blanket — those sold in department stores were either fitted sheets or flat sheets. If you buy a “Bed in a Bag,” the closest thing to a blanket would be a comforter, which may be too warm for Manila, even with air conditioning on.

A decade or so ago, my friend Anna B. would make a killing selling those lovely flannel blankets, available in plain colors or printed designs, in all the upscale Christmas Bazaars in Manila. Now that she has moved to New York, I can let you in on her mark up. She would roll them up in attractive bundles and tie a thick ribbon around them and sell them for about Php450 apiece. And all the shoppers would buy them up!

Her cost at that time? Php90 for the printed ones and Php80 for the plain ones.

Anna would make so much money during the Christmas season she had enough money to live on for a whole year. Of course the costs for booth rentals were pretty steep even then, but a net profit of about Php100,000/year was enough for yuppies in Manila to live on 10 years ago, especially when they were still living with their parents, and if they had day jobs selling cars.

I would help her buy them all up. And we would have young men carrying hundreds upon hundreds of them out of the market, sometimes on their heads, and we would traverse the center aisle, safari or caravan-style,  to the waiting car over at Abanao Road.

And here is the secret that I will share with you today. You can get them cheaper at the Hangar! In fact you cannot get them cheaper anywhere else.

For those of you familiar with the hugely popular Baguio City Market, it is that area past the veggies, to your right, if you are facing the market on the Magsaysay side.

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