This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VI, No. 51, Jan. 28-Feb. 3, 2007
Flip-Flops, Liliw Style A
trip in the town of Liliw would give flip-flop lovers a fresh view about this
new craze. The homegrown, native slippers are hand-made, piece-by-piece, by the
town’s oldest and finest-skilled shoemakers. BY
DABET CASTANEDA LILIW, Laguna – Even
old-fashioned grandmothers would agree that flip-flops are the latest things in
footwear all over the country in the last five years. Mostly rubber-made, their
wide range of colors - from black, gray, moss green and maroon to brighter
shades of red, pink, yellow, orange, royal blue and neon green - would fit to a
wide range of end users - from the street kids and market vendors to students,
young professionals or just about anybody who would want to be comfy when
traveling, mall-hopping, going to school, office or just taking a walk down the
street. A trip in this town (110 km
south of Manila via Sta. Cruz, the province capital of Laguna) though would give
flip-flop lovers a fresh view about this new craze. The homegrown, native
slippers hand-made, piece-by-piece, by the town’s oldest and finest-skilled
shoemakers, are known here by the local name tsinelas. Exciting
designs Abaca and native beads
dominate the designs of footwear products here but there are also imported beads
and soles from China, one of the store owners said. The native accessories come
in different striking and trendy colors such as hot pink, neon green, bright
yellow and dazzling orange combined with brown and cream, the abaca’s natural
color. Straps or the entrada are mostly made of abaca or felt cloth.
The soles are also mostly
made of abaca or tikog (woven mat). My most favorite design has a
tikog sole and thin abaca straps with coconut shells as accessories. The designs are originally
made by the manufacturers inspired by imported shoes and slippers.
Shoemakers Forty-nine-year-old Renato
Capili is a native of Sta. Cruz town, same province. He has been a shoemaker for
28 years here Liliw, a skill he learned from his elders. He is single, he said,
and spends most of his time doing different styles of slippers mostly made of
native accessories like abaca from Bicol, beads from Divisoria in Manila and
ready-made cork soles from Biñan, another town in Laguna 35 kms south of Manila. On the other hand, Gin
Sarmiento, 42, started working as shoemaker in Biñan for 13 years. He
transferred to Liliw two years ago, “kasi matumal na ang industriya ng
tsinelas sa Biñan dahil sa pagpasok ng mga imported na produkto” (The
industry has slackened in Biñan because of the influx of imported slippers), he
sighed. Shoemakers here are paid
P30 (flats) or P35 (with heels) per pair but P1 goes to the fabric cutter,
therefore, the actual pay per pair is P29 or P34 depending on the style.
Old
industry Tsinelas
production in this town started as early as 1960s, said Emma Camello of the
Socialite Footwear, one of the pioneers in the footwear business here. Socialite
Footwear is now operated by the family’s third generation heirs. Manufacturers here were
always in tight competition with neighboring town Biñan until the late 1990s
when imported shoes and slippers flooded the town market causing the decline of
the local footwear industry there. Although Liliw footwear
products are now popular in Metro Manila malls and flee markets and boasts of an
international market in China, operations, production and storage are still
backward. Production houses are literally in the backyard where shoemakers each
have their own cubicles that serve as work places. Learning from the Biñan
experience, footwear manufacturers in Liliw have formed an association and have
agreed to ban all imported footwear products from this town. Bulatlat © 2007 Bulatlat
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