Salome Añasco: Small but terrible

Salome Añasco, known as Paz to her friends, used to work as a casual employee in the neighboring town of Buenavista for six years. She was married in 1992 to Silvano Añasco, a Philippine National Police (PNP) officer. “Life was so simple then,” Paz reminisced. Going to office eight hours a day and waiting for her bi-monthly salary. However, after a year, when they already had their first child, things, especially their finances and her schedule from office, changed. Like any other working mother, she had to attend to the needs of her family before going to office. And things became harder when her second child was born.  

In her desire to manage her own time and driven by the need to raise the family’s income while improving the quality of life of other working mothers like her, Paz started the business small. She secured a P50,000 initial investment for a buy-and-sell operation of natural raffia rolls. Four years later, in one of her delivery trips to Cebu, Paz brought with her samples of her own designs of dyed raffia place mats and dyed raffia rolls. Fortunately, her clients made an initial order. That was the start of a big break for the business. From then on, everything turned out well. While joining local trade fairs, it opened her doors to different buyers. It also made her aware of the significance of quality to be competitive.

To enhance and improve her products, Paz actively sought and availed herself of government assistance in various forms, particularly on the improvement of her array of products such as raffia place mats, raffia table runners, raffia coasters, and raffia woven rolls. She took advantage of the seminar/ workshop on Basic and Advance Dyeing of Indigenous Fibers conducted by PTRI in November 2000 and August 2002. After the intervention, 3SH-A Handicraft drew the attention of many local and foreign buyers, who placed regular orders through exporters based in Manila and Cebu. Now she is venturing into new products such as sinamay production. “Even if we don’t have big orders we continuously produce natural raffia rolls because there is a ready market,” said Paz. Another activity generating income for them is the production of grass skirts, with a monthly order of 10,000 pieces. Production of this item is confined only in Bohol.

9-10 Handicraft

The 9-10 Handicraft, owned by Jun and Josie Cenabre, officially started business in 1992 with an initial capital of P10,000. Jun and Josie Cenabre started out as traders of raffia fibers and hand-woven products. Eventually, they went into the production of finished products themselves in 1999.