Bagsakan City
The City of Urdaneta, earned its name as the “Bagsakan (trading post)" City of the Pangasinan because it serves as a drop-off point of the various fruits and vegetables coming from the different municipalities in Pangasinan and nearby provinces. The city’s bagsakan center, just like in the Divisioria market, practice free enterprise, wherein nobody controls the price unlike in some areas where a group of people control the price. Sometimes, the food staples traded here are sold up to 12 percent cheaper prices. Vegetables, such as tomatoes, pechay, onions, string beans, okra, eggplants and ampalaya from Pangasinan municipalities, and fruits, such as pomelo and banana of Davao, Batangas lanzones and dalandan of Laguna, are sold daily in the city’s bagsakan market. Traders and market vendors from within Luzon come to this city to buy goods and sell these to the different towns in Pangasinan and other Luzon provinces
The City, is strategically located in the central eastern part of Pangasinan, which is transversed by the Manila North Road, virtually bisecting the locality into the west and east side. It is bounded in the north by the Municipality of Binalonan, south by the Municipality of Villasis, east by the Municipality of Asingan and west by the Municipality of Sta Barbara. With this location of Urdaneta, it makes it a convenient bagsakan market. It is the gateway to Baguio City and Northern Luzon provinces, and to central and western Pangasinan.
It is believed that the bagsakan center in Urdaneta City was an offshoot of the city’s cattle market during the World War II. Urdaneta, then a town, had no definite area for selling cattles and business was done at the plaza and near the municipal hall. People from Luzon provinces would go to the city to buy cattles and “bagoong” (fish sauce from Lingayen town) to bring to their provinces. Soon the cattle traders from the Pangasinan municipalities and nearby provinces thought of bringing with them their farm harvests, aside from their cattles, and sold them in the market. By word of mouth, news spread that vegetables and fruits were sold in Urdaneta, and soon, not only cattle traders were buying and selling the fam produce but wholesalers as well. As of today, a large cattle market is situated in Barangay Anonas of this city, and is known to be Northern Luzon’s biggest cattle market. However, the bagsakan market remains in the city proper near the plaza.
