Sarangani’s “sinamay” makers keep up tradition
Valued by its first Christian settlers more than half a century ago, this town’s rich soil not only grows cultivated crops but also abounded with abaca (Musa textilis), a species of banana native to the Philippines.
Now, many of its highlanders live out of it. They are the Tboli “sinamay” makers of the United Maligang Farmers Multi-Purpose Cooperative (UMFMPC) in Maligang, some four kilometers from the town’s highway.
By now, there are at least 15 of them trained by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Fiber Industries Development Authority (FIDA), and provided equipment by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the municipal government.
Twenty-five women form barangay Badtasan, with four from UMFMPC, finished the February 17-18 training on fiber treating and dyeing.
For the “sinamay” project, the DTI has provided three loom-weaving equipment. DOLE provided a working capital and eight looms for the coop.
It is remarkable how the “sinamay” makers preserve a tradition of perseverance and animistic faith in giving value to the plant aside from making business out of it.
“Sinamay making is sacred,” Eliza Cango said. Eliza is one of the “sinamay” makers who have depended on it for her family of nine children. She believes by doing so, she was preserving an old tradition of her tribe.
“We pray every time we start making a piece of sinamay. We pray before inserting the first three very fine fiber threads into the sulod,” she disclosed.
“We pray to the tree, the wind, the soil the water, to guide us in making a beautiful sinamay and give us a bountiful harvest.”
“Sinamay” is a product of laboriously and painstakingly weaving the “tinagak” which comes from the “eskuhido”.
“Eskuhido” or the raw fiber threads are stripped strands of leaf sheath from the abaca trunk by the use of a stripping machine or by bare hands. “Eskuhido”, sold by kilo, is produced and marketed easily and often results to market surplus.
“Tinagak” is a finely knotted abaca filament or fiber thread. A bunch of it, about three meters long, is rubbed hardly by bare hands to soften the strands and then combed to remove the broken ones. A bunch of it, commonly in three meters, is then soaked into a pail, boiled and dyed until it is finally ready for “sinamay”.
“It really needs a lot of patience and perseverance,” Eliza said.
First, the “tinagak” is inserted into a combed-like “sulod” in a machine called handloom. It is then woven using a wooden or bamboo-made “baruto” using the maker’s two hands while pedaling to tighten the threads to make up a “sinamay” cloth.
At P45 per meter, a “sinamay” maker has to spend a day to finish one, “but it’s really worth the effort seeing the finished product in the market,” Eliza mused.
Glittered “sinamay” cloth makes an elegant packaging material. It can also be dyed and colored for hat adornment or ribbon for wine bottles.
Other natural fiber-made products from “sinamay” common in the market today are basketries, sandals, hats, slippers and bags.
The UMFMPC in four-year time has grown into a business under the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME). Members farm their own abaca.
Ricardo Malayo, the coop’s vice chairman said they can produce 10,000 meters of “sinamay” monthly from their harvest as required by the Peral Enterprises in Manila which they had signed a memorandum of understanding with last year.
“Eventually a marketing agreement would be forged with Cystal Seas,” said Engr. Nenita Barroso, DTI provincial director. “The project offers employment opportunity and income to women and upland community.”
Crystal Seas of Davao and UMFMPC have ventured into technology-production and product development. Crystal Seas has also placed orders for “sinamay” and dyed twines, Barroso said.
As other barangays, Lomuyon, Tambilil, Tamadang, Falel and Tablao, also produce abaca, DTI has declared it Kiamba’s One Town One Product (OTOP).
At the province’s MunaTo Festival last year, Kiamba won the best booth among the seven towns exhibiting their OTOP, tourism destinations and investment potentials. The municipal government intends the prize of P100,000 to assist UMFMPC.
In his State of the Municipality Address on February 10, as the town celebrated its 61st founding anniversary and 5th Timpuyog Festival, Mayor Rom Falgui said a P2.8-million worth of tissue culture laboratory for abaca will soon be constructed with assistance from the Department of Agriculture and the provincial government.
Abaca was first cultivated on a large scale in Sumatra in 1925 under the Dutch who had observed its cultivation in the Philippines for cordage since the 1800s.
