Monday, October 09, 2006 From baubles and beads, a family’s livelihood By Bejay Villaflores STC Mass Communications Student
AT 54, Renato Aparicio takes jeepney route 11E from Barangay Basak, Cebu City to Carbon public market each day. The nondescript lane at the back of the Metro Cebu Water District (MCWD) building, lonely at 7 a.m., becomes his red carpet. Here is a fashion jewelry shop his family owns.
The Aparicios’ stall stands at the end of a line of 30 fashion accessory shops, which are uniform in size and shape.
Until 6 p.m., the stores are adorned with assortments of jewelry and raw materials strung together from Basak, Barangay Inayawan, and Mandaue and Talisay cities.
Threaded, polished and patterned finished products hang in bulk and in strings.
This is how Renato’s days go: he slides the door up, dusts off the area, and arrays stringed beads, seashells, coconut shells and special laces. For him, making fashion jewelry and accessories is something that is not taught, but a skill acquired through years of stringing and experimenting.
His 70-year-old mother Rosenda agrees. Without formal education in designing or a business management degree, she opened and maintained their store.
Taking risks
Being the wife of a jeepney driver and a mother of nine, Rosenda figured out it would be hard to rely solely on her husband’s daily earnings.
“Tungod sa kapait sa una bitaw, namaligya si mama og painit (Because the times were hard, my mother had to sell snacks),” adds Renato.
Seeing that local designers source materials from their place in Basak, she started buying processed shells, stringing them, and selling them along with the food she peddled.
She also tried designing necklaces and bracelets. And they sold well, says Renato.
In 1975, the Aparicio family decided to concentrate on designing and selling fashion accessories. In 1999, they and other accessories vendors were made to transfer from the P. Gullas St. sidewalk to Magallanes St. Since 2000, they have settled in an area at the back of the MCWD building.
“Maayo man ang puwesto, dili kaayu risky. Bisan og suok, ang mga buyers motultol na man diri (The location is good and relatively safe. Although it is not so conspicuous, buyers still come here),” Renato says.
He and his siblings found an interest in creating their own designs not so long ago.
“Kuti, pero talent lang jud tingali na namo ang pag-combine-combine (A complicated task, but I think we have the talent for it),” Renato says, while arranging strings of white shells hanging on their stall’s wall.
Family ties
As the eldest, he sacrificed and dropped out in his first year of high school just to help. Supported by his and his parents’ efforts, however, a younger sibling finished college and now works as a marine engineer abroad.
Another brother is now a policeman; and Nelson, who chose to help in the stall, is a licensed radio operator.
Renato harbors no resentment for his lack of formal schooling. Instead, he takes pride in the business, in having supported his brothers in their education.
“Kana laging kinamagwangan ta, kita jud ang ma-atlan sa lisod na kahimtang, (That is how it is when we are the eldest, we get to bear the brunt of hardships),” he says. Had he the opportunity, he would have wanted to be a pilot.
Renato got married when he was 19, and had four children, two boys and two girls.
In 1980, he left accessories-making to work as steward in a ship sailing the Cebu-Zamboanga route.
In 1985, however, his old livelihood beckoned, and he never looked back when the ship docked at the port at the back of the family’s stall.
“Ako-ang junior, naa na sa Saudi, merchandiser, (My youngest son is now in Saudi Arabia, working as a merchandiser),” says Renato.
He beams that through his small business, all his children received adequate education.
Daily grind
A few minutes after 7 a.m., the stores open up for business, and the old and young alike start buzzing from a stall to another.
Asked if business acumen runs in the family, Renato answers: “Kugi man jud ang kinahanglanon ana (Not really. All it takes is hard work).”
Competition among them also does not bother him, or Tessy Rocios, another stall-owner. “Ang amo-a ani kay ang makabuhat ra jud mi og amo-ang own designs, unya naa sa’y mamalit, (All we care about is that we can create our own designs and that people will buy them),” Tessy says, while threading beads and shells.
Renato says business has been slow for five months now. Other stall owners and attendants said customers from Germany, China, Norway, Thailand and Korea have become fewer.
“Menos na kaayo ang mamalit og dinaghan og mga wholesale (It is now seldom that a buyer buys in bulk),” Renato adds.
Competition from other counties has weakened the business, said Emily, who has worked for five years now at Amer Trading, a raw materials supplier from Mandaue.
“Ang mga Chinese kay manundog man na sila sa amoang mga hulma sa materials. Mas-dali lang sa ila kay maggamit man sila og mga makina, ang amoa kay de mano man (The Chinese copy our designs. It is easier for them because they use machines, while we do them manually).”
She adds that the only things the Chinese could not produce through machines are those that the Filipino makers carve by hand.
Mass production, she says, makes the Chinese’s products less expensive and easier to sell.
Murmurs and the clinking of shells fill the lane. Lucinda arrives and joins Renato in the stall. Both start stringing up beads and shells. The necklaces, they say, would fetch a wholesale price of P10 to P40, depending on the quantity and kind of material.
