Palengke

A palengke is a type of public market common throughout the Philippines.

The word palengke is a local variant of the Spanish word palenque, literally meaning "(wooden) palisade or " and by extension the area enclosed by such a structure for defense, public festivals or some other purpose. The Spanish word is also used to describe a pathway or cluster of tables set up at some place of gathering such as a theatre, tournament or market, and it is from this latter sense that palengke likely derives its usage in the Filipino context.

In the former Spanish colonies of New Spain in the Americas palenque also described a gathering-place of indios. One false etymology for palengke/palenque appearing in some popular sources mistakenly presumes that palenque is instead a word from the indigenous Mayan languages of Central America meaning "gathering place", and that in colonial times the Spanish adopted it to describe a gathering of indigenous groups. While its use in Latin America to describe such a gathering is attested, the word itself originates from Spanish and not any of the indigenous languages; the mistaken belief of the word's indigenous origin is probably reinforced by Palenque—the famous Maya archaeological site in Chiapas, Mexico—which was named after the nearby Spanish village when the site was rediscovered in the mid-18th century.

A palengke is usually composed of several dozen stalls arranged in rows under a shared roof. Management is usually by the local governmental units whose jurisdiction encompasses the physical location of the markets. Certain pieces of legislation, however, such as the Cooperatives Code (RA 7160) and the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (RA 8435) have prescribed that management of the markets be accomplished through cooperatives. There is little control over the day-to-day management of individual stalls, including commodity pricing. This has resulted in what has been called "palengke mechanics". A cited example would be the price of chicken during the local 2007 holiday season; lack of demand for the product resulted in prices going up rather than down. It was stated that this was the result of local retailers raising prices to recover financial losses from low demand. The Philippine government retains some control over the price of some commodities sold in palengkes, especially critical foods such as rice. The National Food Authority calls this regulation campaign (specifically for rice), Palengke Watch.

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