Catanduanes Forum

Just came across this article on the net. Though it appeared last year in Inquirer, i think we should study this closely and see how we can take advantage of this in terms of training, etc.

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Baguio ‘walis-tambo’ rooted in Catanduanes
First posted 11:28pm (Mla time) June 08, 2006
By Francis Monteseña
Inquirer

FOR over 50 years, tourists and other buyers of that lowly household cleaning tool called the walis-tambo (soft broom), its wooden handle emblazoned with “Baguio City,” never knew where the material really came from.

Tiger grass never grew well in Bontoc, while soft broom makers in Bataan and Nueva Ecija never planted their own.

Now the secret is slowly coming out. Thanks to a group of enterprising businessmen and a government that has finally taken notice of a largely ignored but economically significant, multimillion-peso cottage industry in the island-province of Catanduanes.
On May 14-May 18, seven barangays in the northern town of Caramoran held its 2nd Sugbo Festival to celebrate their good fortune of having such useful grass thrive in their mountainous, stony terrain.

Barangays Hitoma, Inalmasinan, Bulalacao, Iyao, Guiamlong, Obi and Salvacion are the centers of the tiger grass industry which, according to the Department of Trade and Industry, generates revenues of P20 million to P30 million yearly.

The sugbo, as the grass is popularly called in Caramoran, is scientifically known as Thysanolaema maxima of the Graminae family. Also known as lasa in other parts of Catanduanes and Bicol, it is grown commercially as material for soft broom, a popular cleaning tool of Filipinos, and some handicrafts.

Beginnings

Lorenzo Benedicto, 70, recalls that he and his father started their sugbo processing business in 1955, when soft broom (referred to as the samhod on the island) cost just 25 centavos.

He said his earnings supported his family of 14 children. He supplies at least 2,000 soft brooms a month to the SM chain of malls, Baguio and Manila.

For decades, traders have brought almost all of the sugbo panicles harvested in Caramoran to Mabatang, Abucay, Bataan. The raw materials are made into soft brooms, marked “Baguio City” and sold in the summer capital to tourists and domestic users.

Elmer Samonte, who says he was one of the three original viajeros of raw tiger grass panicles, claims they were instrumental in the growth of the lasa processing industry in Bataan.

Last year, a delegation of Caramoran officials led by Mayor Ma. Theresa Qua went to Mabatang to explore the possibility of raising the price of raw materials.

Their Bataan counterparts pleaded that their traders be not banned from buying the lasa so as not to jeopardize the livelihood of 1,000 processors there.

From a very few who sold soft brooms in Catanduanes, the number of tiger grass processors has grown to 37 full-timers in the business.

In the Hitoma area, almost every household has members gathering or making soft brooms. They sell their produce to major processors for shipment to Manila and other buying centers.

Still, about 80 percent of the grass harvested in Catanduanes go to Bataan, where traders mix local fibers with those from Bontoc and the Bicol mainland.

Capital

The dominance of Bataan traders is understandable.

Aside from the typhoons that regularly visit the “Isle of the Howling Winds,” the budding processing industry has been plagued by the lack of working capital.

When the sugbo is scarce, the small processors are forced to buy from other traders at high prices.

The tampa system, in which buyers give planters advance payment for their harvest, leaves the growers no chance of getting good prices or looking for other buyers, according to the DTI.

A shift in government priorities in the last five years has improved the situation.

In 2001, DTI-Catanduanes placed tiger grass under its Plus 1 program. The impact, however, was too insignificant to be felt by beneficiaries.

A few years later, the provincial government concentrated its efforts on helping industries dependent on abundant raw materials like abaca, of which Catanduanes is the top producer in the country, and tiger grass.

New priorities

“The refocusing of priorities is essential because it enables the government to see the impact of its interventions, to see how far we’ve gone as far as developing an industry is concerned,” said DTI provincial director Ireneo B. Panti Jr.

In 2005, sugbo or lasa was chosen as CaramoranÂ’s One-Town-One-Product (Otop), laying the groundwork for the serious development of the sugbo industry.

A series of consultations with local officials, farmers and processors to identify development gaps, and the type and level of interventions, led to the organization of the Caramoran Lasa Processors and Farmers Association, headed by Sanny Barra.

Rev. Fr. Jesus Guinguing, radio announcer Ferdinand Brizo and Soledad Ricafort Manrique conceptualized the “Sugbo Festival” last year.

The organizers tapped professionals, civic leaders and adopted residents of Hitoma and adjoining barangays of Inalmasinan, Bulalacao, Iyao, Guiamlong, Obi and Salvacion, like Crispin Lopez, Merlyn Villalarbo-Avila, Karen Brizo, Josephine Tablante, Brenda Gonzales, Amador Abichuela and Elpidio Tuboro.

From this enterprising group arose the Sugbo Movers Association.

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