By Bohol Island News Staff | 01:56 PM December 27, 2019
Four days before the New Year’s Eve, business remains slow for some fruit vendors in Bohol.
Jennelyn Delos Santos, is tending her stall near the Tagbilaran City Square while arranging the fruits while a customer examines some apples.
“Mingaw jud rung tuiga kung ikumpara last year,” Delos Santos lamented.
Delos Santos and other vendors set up their shop on Dec. 23 and she expects to be on the same spot until the stroke of midnight on the first day of the year.
She sells apples, grapes, pineapples, oranges, banana and mangoes, but there were only a handful of customers who actually bought from her store.
At Delos Santos’s stall, apples sells at P10-20 per piece; mangoes at P100-P200 per kilo; “kiat-kiat” (Mandarin oranges) sells for P100 per bundle; grapes at P200 per kilo; pineapples at PHP50-P80per piece; lemon at P20 per piece; lanzones at P120 per kilo; and watermelon at P35-P40 per kilo.
These fruits came from Cebu City.
Another vendor Evelyn Estomata said she suspected that typhoon Ursula affected their sales.
However, vendor Teresita Ano believed otherwise.
“Mingaw ron kay praktikal ang mga tawo,” she said.
Vendors are still hopeful customers will still buy round fruits to complete the tradition of “palihi.”
Some Filipinos still maintain the tradition of preparing 12 round-shaped fruits on New Year’s Eve supposedly to bring luck and prosperity for the New Year.
In Chinese tradition, however, 13 round fruits symbolizing prosperity may bring luck for the coming year.
