Mothers seek fortune in bag-making, sewing

CEBU, Philippines - Unfortunate events in life can push almost anyone against the wall, where retreat seems to become the next best order. But for these three Cebuana mothers, life’s trials are pure gold to their little businesses.

Abegail Cabanit, 35, woke up to a devastating news one day: her second grade son was found to have sudden, repetitive muscular disorder known in the medical world as tic.

Horrendous hospital and medication expenses ensued, and for a mere company worker who lives one payout to the next, Cabanit needed to hold on to something.

Recounting her experiences in tears, she said she searched and found strength in God and in her small bag-making business.

“Everything started out as an experiment,” Cabanit recalled. “As an initial step, I asked a relative if she wanted me to make a bag for her. She agreed. Days later, I showed her the output — there and then, she became my first customer.”

Cabanit, who finds the art of sewing dear to heart, graduated from a sewing course in a vocational school even before she landed on her job in 1996. It was only after her son’s medical dilemma that she rekindled with her passion for sewing.

“Regular company employees don’t normally set aside savings for emergency medical expenses. I was not an exemption. After my son’s experience, I learned how valuable it is to save, as much as how valuable health is,” she said.

The business began with her making pillow cases for handful customers. Soon she tried pencil cases, and much sooner, ID tag holders. All picked up, Cabanit said.

When she obtained a bulk order that grossed her about P24,000, she finally thought the time was ripe for her to send her bag-making business into full launch.

Cabanit then secretly contracted her co-employees for backpack and sling bag orders. When her bags sold out, she realized there was indeed a market for her goods.

Today, aside from her regular orders, she is also enjoying brisk demands from at least three regular distributors. With the help of two partners in production, she is now studying to introduce her bags to department stores very soon.

What started out as a secret business inside the company she works has now gained approval from the company’s directors. In fact, her bags are now displayed at her company’s cooperative, while she and the coop’s directors negotiate on the terms by which her business can operate.

True to her goal to reign in the bag-making industry, she now owns three sewing machines: one hand-operated (mano-mano), one portable and one heavy-duty.

Cabanit said had it not been for her son’s ailment, she could not have explored the sleeping entrepreneurial spirit in herself.

As for Gloria Abapo, 60, and Maricar Ocampo, 53, fire incidents (and age, they joked) never stopped them from pursuing a career in sewing.

Known dressmakers in their respective communities, these two find pleasure in the fact that tailoring allows them to play their roles as full time mothers, but at the same time, help put food to the table.

In 2008, a fire near Ocampo’s place on Junquera Extension in Barangay Cogon ate up practically everything she needed in the business: her sewing machines, threads, needles, clothes, etc.

Abapo experienced similar fate —  a fire in Barangay Ermita razed all her gowns on display, her sewing machines, clothes, and other sewing materials — this at a time she was all systems go to an around the clock sewing business.

Abapo went emotional when she remembered that three days from arriving as an Overseas Filipino Worker in Riyadh, just when she thought she could now focus on sewing as a permanent career, the stroke of luck went quite terrible for her.

Ocampo and Abapo found support from Kapamilya Negosyo Na (KNN), a local institution that helps small-scale enterprises by providing them a little amount of seed capital to further their businesses. 

After receiving P10,000 from KNN last year, the exceptional Ocampo, who also designs dresses for her patrons, was able to get her sewing business back to its feet again. Abapo, meanwhile, who just joined the KNN wagon this year received an initial P4,000 last August to help her build up the lost business.

Ocampo shared that sewing business nowadays is perpetually confronted with challenges, more so now that a lot of department stores and ukay-ukay joints compete with them in providing the public a source of garments.

But regular demand is there, both seamstresses said, “especially during the months of June and December, the peak season for school uniforms and party costumes.”

For the business to thrive, a good deal of customer service skills and patience is needed, according to Ocampo and Abapo.

“Dressmakers are the most patient in the world. Di ka mahimong pinakamaayo nga dressmaker kun wa kay kaluha nga tangkasunon (You won’t become the best dressmaker if you don’t have the fortitude to sew, cut and sew clothes again),” said Ocampo. (FREEMAN)