By DANNY O. SAGUN

THE Tinday Labi did not come as big as others thought it would be during its launch Friday night last week.

Despite the distance from our humble place in San Jacinto, we came to the city together with my wifey and my only daughter just to see for ourselves how the night market would fare as envisioned. We were quite dismayed to find though that only a small portion of the main thoroughfare, A.B. Fernandez avenue, was actually used, not the section from corner Rizal street to corner Burgos street, as earlier announced by the organizers.

“Angapo met, iner ey?” my better-half curiously asked me as we reached that corner on Rizal street. We were expecting a truly busy market from that place down to the city plaza with lots of people - buyers, spectators, kibitzers and sellers – occupying every space in that roadstretch. The market, it turned out, covered only the frontage of City hall and that of the city museum. Not too many people were there.

Buyers were drawn mostly to the ukay-ukay items as did my wife and daughter. Only a handful, we noted, tried to check on the other products/goods.

No band was playing when we arrived at around 9 p.m It was only after some minutes when a local group started entertaining the small crowd on a stage in front of the city hall.

The band hardly got the crowd’s attention with its so-so performance– no screaming, pushing or shouting which are common in concerts.

We spent no more than 30 minutes in the place then left.
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Dennis Canto and his group may now be weighing their options to make that Tinday Labi really click.
Ready-to-wear items and food and drinks dominated the items for sale at the night market. Such goodies may attract buyers but they are very common already in our public markets and private stores all over town. We think the night market should look and feel different to really attract people.
We wonder if vegetable vendors were intentionally excluded from the market. These vendors who come mostly from other towns can readily occupy any place they are allowed to ply their trade in like the side portions of Zamora, Jovellanos and Galvan during the time of former Mayor Al Fernandez. The organizers don’t even have to advertise their project over the radio to attract such ambulant vendors.
And where were the products of neighboring towns? Canto in his radio interviews asked traders, businessmen, producers to come to town on the weekends of Fridays and Saturdays to do business here and at the same time enjoy the fun. From what we personally saw that Friday night, there were none of those products displayed for sale.
Just one band (so-so at that) playing could not keep the crowd on their feet. More groups have to be invited to truly enliven the night.
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Many people, including us, had doubts on the reported presence of bogus coins. Who would in his right mind fake coins of little denominational value – 25 centavos, one peso, five pesos and ten pesos – and make big?

Told about the news by his graduate class, Dr. Bobby delos Reyes of Metro Dagupan Colleges could only swing his head in disbelief as he pointed out that syndicates would rather fake dollars or P1,000 and P500 bills for which they would get much in return.

But the report was true. Bogus coins have been in circulation for quite a time now. Retired DTI provincial chief Jimmy Lucas took pains showing us how to detect true from the fake in one of his rare visits to our PIA office at the People’s Astrodome.

With several coins in hand, he had them one by one attached to a magnet. Two 25-centavo coins stuck to the magnet.
Curious officemate Briny also bought out all her coins and three 25-centavo coins also got stuck to the magnet. Yes, fake coins must have iron mix so that they stick to the magnet. Without the magnet you cannot distinguish which is fake.

So far,no one-peso, five-peso and ten-peso coin flunked that simple test of Ka Jaime.