Deaf-mute couple weave business to success

                                                      

By

Charene Toyoken Dacwag

Bangaan National High School   

Being deaf and mute is no hindrance to this couple from the hinterlands of the Cordillera to move about as normal people do. They tried to go to school, fall in love, get married, have children, raise a family, establish their source of livelihood and be successful  in it.

Couple Robert Ag-a and Irene Wanawan were born deaf and mute. Despite their conditions, they went to school, struggling to learn as much as they can. Robert Ag-a from Demang, Sagada was able to graduate in elementary education. Irene Wanawan from barangay Madongo of northern Sagada of the same town could not stand all the criticisms and bullying that she received because of her condition. This caused her to stop schooling after completing third grade.

The system of life back then was, ‘nu epdas nasiken, mabalin et maki-balasa (teenagers can now work)’.  So it is customary for children to help their parents work in the field and more so where   child has already reached teenagehood that her capacity to work and be productive as a grown up person is a norm here in the highland tribes of Mountain Province particularly Sagada.  

So at a young age, they set out on the world to find their luck.  Robert Ag-a and Irene  Wanawan found work as weavers at Sagada Weaving, a weaving firm established at Poblacion Sagada in August 1980 by Ms Andrea Bondad. Soon after with everyday presence of seeing each other at work, they found themselves going close together and in love. It was not very long before they were gifted with two beautiful identical twins namely Elizabeth and Lilibeth. A couple of years later, they bore another beautiful child who was then named Irene after her mother.

After marriage, they decided to put up their own weaving establishment March 2000. They named it “Langbay’s Handicrafts” after Ag-‘s Igorot name ‘Langbay’. The weaving establishment is found in Tam-aw, Madongo, Sagada, Mountain Province which also locates their residence.

The couple said their aim in putting up their business is to fulfill their dreams: to have enough money so that they can put up their own house and to send their kids to school so that every single one of their kids will have a good life. With their perseverance and industry they were able to have their house built and are currently sending two of their children to college. 

The Langbay Handicrafts is one of the main producers and suppliers of woven products in northern Sagada and one among nearly 20 weaving enterprises in the tourist town. The main products of the said establishment are backpacks, round bags, and ethnic attire such as the ‘wanes’ or the g-string, ‘gateng’ or the tapis, ‘wakes’,  blazers, chaleko, and others. Just like any weaving establishment, they also make wallets and handbags, hats, coin purses, and the kind. They also accept orders such as seat covers and upholstery of vehicles. All the main products are made by hand by Robert Ag-a and wife.

According to some of their customers and clients, their products are long-lasting and durable. This is because the couple is strict with quality. The wife ensures that the woven outputs are living up to quality. Irene  has a way of communicating what is wrong with an output and what must be done to ensure excellence in the product pointing this out in hand  signals. That is, if a woven material is loose and has to be formed up or one that has protruding thread and has to be tucked firm in place or cut and discarded and the remaining material to be used for the  final product.

Communicating via hand signals and looking at the couple’s facial expression let you know what they are saying. For co-residents and others in town with the same dialect, communication comes kind of easy. For customers who don’t share the same dialect, the products speak for themselves along with the prices which are already indicated in the products on display.  

Aside from making hand woven products, they also offer different services as the repair of clothes especially pants and repair of bags usually fixation of zippers. He has some exemptions on these services that he offers.

           If the material to be repaired is owned by kids, he gives discounts and there are even times he’ll do it for free, depending on the damage. On the repair of bags, if it is one of his products, he will repair it for free.

                The manpower of the weaving establishment is composed only of husband and wife. Robert Ag-a does the repair and sewing while his wife does the loom-weaving to produce the woven cloth that will be used in making the main products. While Robert Ag-a mainly does the sewing, he also helps in weaving when their products become a demand. Their daughters help them during their leisure time in weaving and attending to customers in the shop . Irene and Lilibeth help their mother in loom-weaving while Elizabeth, a BS entrepreneur student helps their father in weaving.

They also intend to provide the needs for the i-Northern Sagada. 

The establishment also offers help to the people in the area in terms of providing livelihood. In some cases, some women weave and are paid for their output  to pay off their debt to the couple if they happen to have borrowed some money.

Equipment is few in the work place. There are four sewing machines. Two are electrical and two are manual. They also have four Looms.  The machinery that caught our attention was the spinning wheel that was made of wood. It was old and simple but it was durable for it has lasted for how many years. The spinning wheel is used to fix spools of thread so that the threads are ready for weaving purposes.

In order to market customers, they need to advertise their products. On the word of Robert Ag-a, their means of advertising at the start was through the printed shirts with the handicraft’s logo. Their feature on ABS-CBN also brought them more customers. The children also wear the products of their parents to school. This brings in more customers.

Some government personnel  have their uniforms woven and sawn by Langbay’s Handicrafts. It must be that they have quality material that their products are patronized.

Just like any business establishment, they have displays of their products in a glass case right after you enter the door of their shop. Somehow, there are lesser items on display because they are always out-of-stock due to their products being in demand. If you want a certain product of theirs, you would have to order it. There are also Souvenir Stores who order their products and put the items on display. The Pasalubong Center in Bontoc, Mountain Province for example, displays some of Langbay’s Handicrafts.

The business also has some downfalls. Because of lack of manpower, there are times that the orders can not be made on time. This means some customers cancel their orders if it takes too long to make. The cancelled orders end up on the display case. Somehow, the business also has its ups. There are times that the number of walk-in customers increase and this results in the upturn of sales and number of orders.

And with northern Sagada already attracting tourists to the popular  Bumod-ok Falls located in nearby Fidelisan, some visitors buy their souvenir items here at Langbay’s Handicrafts on their way back to the Poblacion. 

As Bonsai Cielo said in her Facebook  page, “visiting Mr. Robert Langbay at his shop is always a must for us when visiting Sagada.”

According to their daughter Irene, her father closes the shop once in a while to finish the orders on time. This also gives him a chance to produce more stocks.

The couple was asked on what inspired them to create lovely handicrafts. Robert Ag-a smiled then expressed his answer in sign language to his daughter. His answer was, “What we have built and what we have become today, I feel like I owe it to my parents. They were the ones who opened a new world for me despite my condition. They sacrificed and went through a lot of hardships just so that I can be in the mainstream.”

Irene Ag-a also beamed when asked the same question and said, “Back then, I was bullied often. The painful words and criticism pushed me to bring out the best in me. The hurtful words from my contemporaries were engraved in my mind. I considered it as a challenge. I used my talent to show the people that just because I’m deaf and mute doesn’t mean I’m of no use.”

They have a similar answer, though. They said, “We have experienced the hardships of life. We do not want what we experienced to be experienced by our children. Besides, we have big dreams for them, and that is for them to have good lives.”

The support of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) was noted in the couple’s  joining DTI-sponsored trade fairs and being a part of livelihood training  skills the government agency provides.

The Ag-a couple show and define what success means. They are a one-of-a-kind kind of people. They survived the challenges and trials that were imposed to them. They proved that determination and perseverance can make anything happen. They serve as an inspiration to the people in the community. Regardless of their being different-abled, they still managed to put up a business, strive and sustain it. Indeed, nothing is impossible.