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KALIBO,
Aklan—When Javier and Anna India Legaspi started their
small business of weaving pineapple and abaca fiber, all
they wanted was to make a living.
Heritage
Arts & Crafts, which they own, grew over the years, with
the couple’s virtues of hard work, patience and
dedication.
Today,
around 200 women from different parts of the province,
who used to be plain and simple housewives, are now more
productive, earning income from weaving inside their
homes.
The
company now exports various hand-woven products to the
United States, Colombia, France, Italy and Japan.
Undeniably, Heritage Arts & Crafts is now a major dollar
earner in the pineapple and abaca fiber weaving
industry, bringing in an estimated $50,000 annually—not
bad for a small family business with humble beginnings.
“Hard
work and dedication is the only real investment we
made,” Javier said.
Javier,
a native of Kalibo, Aklan, like his wife India, started
their business with only one weaver—a housewife whose
hobby was weaving.
From
weaving simple tableclothes and plate mats out of abaca
and pineapple fiber, the company now produces pineapple
seda, banana seda, fine abaca and ply hemp cloth, abaca
ribbons, pineapple seda scarves, and shawls. They also
export crochet hats, embroideries, fiber arts, paintings
and many more.
Partnership made in heaven
IN 1989,
the couple’s “partnership” literally went beyond their
vows of marriage when they decided to put up the
business and become business partners.
The
couple now has a pool of more than 200 weavers, who went
though skills training and personal supervision by the
couple.
“I was
already planning to accept my father’s offer to migrate
to the United States, but eventually, I decided to stay
with my wife. That was the time when we decided to
start the business,” he said.
The
60-year-old Javier, a mechanical engineer, is the
company’s chief executive officer, while
India,
a fine arts graduate, is the artist.
“I
consider myself a jack of all trades. But I am more of
a manager. I manage the business while my wife, aside
from helping me run the business, works as our artist.
She makes the design based on the concepts of our
clients,” he said.
From
nothing to something
Weaving,
Javier admitted, is not a full-time work. Weavers do
not receive monthly salary as they only get paid based
on what they produce.
“Put it
this way: after doing their chores at home, mothers
usually do nothing but watch television or look after
their young children play. They can do that while
weaving. They earn something out of it and become even
more productive,” he said.
Skillful
weavers who weave faster can earn more than minimum
daily wage earners, says Javier.
“Our
company makes sure that our weavers earn enough to raise
and send their children to a decent school,” he said.
Self-sustaining business
According to
India, since they are making use of abaca and pineapple
fibers, their business helps farmers boost their income
in a way.
“We use
natural materials. Local farmers grow abaca and
pineapple and supply the raw materials to us.
Sometimes, their wives are the ones weaving for us,”
India
said.
“That’s
one way of making life self-sustaining in Aklan,” he
added.
“We
discourage urban migration. We make sure that resources
are well within reach,” he said.
Although
most of the company’s products are exported, some of
their products are sold locally and find their way to
malls or local marketplaces.
Empowering women
The
couple adopted the business concept of outsourcing,
which aside from providing housewives part-time jobs,
preserves the Filipino family’s culture and tradition.
“We
conduct training to enhance their skills and provided
them hand looms for weaving. Most women take care of
their children at home while their husbands go to work.
Since they can’t go to work because of the household
chores, we thought of bringing work to their homes,” he
explained.
India,
for her part, said hat as a woman and a mother, she
understands her fellow mothers who want to be productive
and help put food on the table, without having to
sacrifice their role as mother to their children and
wife to their husband.
Heritage
Arts & Craft maintains a small shop along L. Barrios
Street in Kalibo, Aklan, where only a handful of
weavers, mostly young and single women, work.
Others
also work in the office as clerks, marketing or sales
assistants, but the rest of the pack stay at home,
weaving abaca and pineapple fiber.
Strengthening the Filipino family
Weavers
work under the precept of pakyawan, which means
they get paid for the kind of product and the volume of
the products they produce.
Pakyawan
is an
old system developed and introduced by Chinese
businessmen under the precept of “pay for work.”
India,
who usually makes the design, personally supervises the
weavers at the small shop, and gives the weavers tips on
how to do their jobs faster and better.
She also
visits weavers in their homes to check if they are doing
well and to make sure that the production is well within
target schedule.
One
advantage of the pakyawan system over arawan,
wherein employees or workers get paid on a daily basis,
is that the families can help together to do the job,
making every member of the family more productive at
home.
“They
can teach every member of the family to weave and help
finish the job early. The more productive they are, the
more they earn. That’s very helpful because even their
children can weave when the mothers do the chores,”
Javier said.
In
strengthening the Filipino family, he said, they
encourage teamwork among family members. “Father, mother
and children work together,” he said.
Making
business manageable
Keeping
the business small throughout the years, says Javier, is
the secret of their humble success.
“We
don’t produce products without a sure market. Our
production is based on the orders only,” he said.
He said
the company has very few stocks. However, he said that
when orders do come, they make sure that they can
produce the quantity based on the export-quality
standards the company is known for.
In fact,
he said they only spend only around P100,000 to P200,000
a month for supply of raw materials which they produce,
based on orders from abroad.
Javier
said keeping the business small also avoids a lot of
problems normally encountered when businesses grows
bigger and bigger.
Rivalry,
he said, is one of them. Investment, he added, is also
small if the business is small. Nevertheless, he said,
business can be productive and revenue-generating.
“Investment is small if you keep the business small,” he
said.
According to the couple, they don’t intend to force an
expansion.
“We want
the market to decide. If the orders grow, then that’s
the time we will have to grow,” he said.
Right
now, they couple said it is all right for them to do
business to make a living, for them and at least the
families of their more than 200 weavers. |
