BUSINESS BITS

Fruits of the loom
MILLET M. ENRIQUEZ

Dominic Panela tuned his back on a struggling loom weaving business in the 1980s to work for a construction firm in Saudi Arabia. He worked as a carpenter in housing projects for the military in Jeddah for five years and made enough money to buy a house and lot for his wife and child back home. But four years after resigning from his job in 1985, he found his way back to loom weaving when his ventures proved fruitless, and this time he lucked out.

Panela was exposed to loom weaving in his childhood in Vigan, Ilocos Sur, where his mother and her cousins wove table runners and placemats on looms handed down from one generation to the next. An uncle brought him often to Manila and Baguio City, where the Panelas consigned their projects to several stores.

When his time came, Panela managed the family business from 1977 to 1980, but he saw no future in its because some agents and store outlets often failed to pay for their projects, so he decided to try his luck abroad. He thought he would use training in building construction at a local trade school, and when he applied and was hired as a carpenter for the Middle East at an employment agency in Manila, he signed up for three years in Jeddah.

Once there, Panela found it tough battling loneliness and depression, but he was encouraged to soldier on when he got his first paycheck for $450. Working with Lebanese, Bangladeshis, Egyptians and Turks, Panela handled structural fixing and finishing from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. When the Jeddah project ended, he moved to another product, but he quit and decided to return home when his employer decider on salary cuts.

Back in Vigan, Panela tried driving a tricycle,, raising pigs and chickens, and even planting grapes, “Pero bumalik rin ako sa sinulid,” he says. Using the money he’d saved from his Saudi employment, he reopened the family’s loom weaving business in 1989 and called in Rowilda’s Handloom Weaving, after his daughter. He initially spent P30,000 on thread and then hired weavers to man the looms.

“Maghapon at magdamag gumagawa kami kasi gusto kong umangat,” Panela recalls.t hey made table napkins and sold them at P280 a dozen in Baguio City, but the earthquake that his the city in 1990 almost crippled the business. “Halos one month rin nagstop ang production dahil walang makapasok sa Baguio at ang mga tindahan ay nagsarado,” he says.

Undeterred, Panela attended seminars under the Philippine Textile and Research Institute to acquire the special weaving skills that he needed to make ikat placemats. Next, in 1992 he joined the national trade fair where he received volume orders. And with help from the Design Center of the Philippines, Panela introduced new styles and design on hi products.

Rowilda’s has since expanded its line of woven items to include the runners, bathrobes, blankets, pillowcases, and hand towels. It has also opened a showroom at the Heritage Hotel in Vigan City, where buyers may get its napkins at P400 a dozen and hand towels a P150 each.

Panela still uses the family’s three looms at home but sub-contracts other weaving jobs to about 10 people in the neighborhood, paying them by the dozen and according to the complexity of the designs they make.

“Madali humanap ng workers but you have to choose the ones who really know how to weave, kasi kung hindi, masisira ang business,” says Panela. His business is always affected by fluturating thread prices, but he remains optimistic. “Nasa quality lang ako at kailangan gamit ang magandang sinulid,” he says.