There are currently two ways by which fishermen generally market their catch. Fishermen who are indebted to a fish consignor are required to sell their catch to the fish consignor and pay a 10-20 percent commission rate of the total price offered. If they are out of the consignor’s jurisdiction when they sell their catch, they are obliged to remit this same commission rate to their fish consignor. In order to monitor client fishermen who may try to renege on the terms of these contracts, the fish consignor relies on a system of “spies” (local informers) in various coastal towns. The second method of marketing the catch is to sell fish at sea. The pattern of spies used by the fish consignor who independently financed the expansion of this baby purse seining fleet in the 1980s was partly in response to the growth in the number of small retailers operating from boats. These retailers hover around the bays wherever they see seining boats fishing, waiting to see which boats will catch fish. Sometimes, if the captain wishes to set the net immediately to try and catch some more fish, he will sell all of the catch at sea. Since retailers at sea do not charge a commission rate, nor charge for transportation and labor to market the fish, they also represent a very attractive market outlet to traditional fish consigners.
3. Clientelization The preference for the multi-faceted and enduring relationship in the fishing community is often extended to commodity trades. Because of poor transportation and communication facilities, market information is scarce and costly to obtain and, hence, markets tend to be segmented into units of small local communities. The small market size in each community precludes the possibility of using modern marketing practices aimed at reducing uncertainty about product quality. In fact, the marketable surplus of fish producers is too small and variable to introduce grading and brand names. Consequently, regularized and entrusted transactions over time—labelled “clientelization” by Geertz [1978]—are preferred to a spot exchange with strangers in the market place. Geertz studied the process of (repeated) trading in non-standard markets (bazaars) and discusses how informational and other search-related problems are overcome by clientelization. A seller would have a regular clientele which comes only to him and the seller would deal or bargain only with it. That way search costs are eliminated and the bargaining process is made short and efficient. In short, informational or search-cost minimization leads to clientelization. Marketing, middlemen and suki relations The total catch value of a given catch is distributed not only among primary producers and fish processors as secondary producers but also along the marketing chain stretching from the fishing unit through the marketing system to the retailer. Marketing roles are occupied by middlemen, requiring comment on their marketing function. In Philippine fish-marketing, one generalization seems to hold: If there is an economic niche, however small, in the distribution of a catch on its way to the consumer, a middleman will occupy it. The ubiquitous “buy-and-sell” dealers serve as bulking and
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