Tags: Entrepreneurship, Handicrafts
By KC Santos
MALILIPOT, ALBAY – Roy Comeda knows too well how imported products affect local entrepreneurs. For the past 40 years, he’s committed himself to sustaining his handicrafts business.
Roy is the proud proprietor and designer of RJCC Arts & Crafts, which he established in 2000 selling abaca handicrafts. Three years ago, he expanded into making handmade accessories in response to stiff competition.
The Albay native shares that his family, with the initiative of his father, had long been in the business of handicrafts. Roy was only in sixth grade when his father died of illness, leaving him unable to pursue college.
“Our father ingrained in me and all my siblings his love for handicrafts to the point that we each had to make at least one small abaca piece everyday before going to school,” he shares.
With an initial capital of 50,000 pesos and a ton of passion, Roy secured a space inside a mall where he initially sold bags and other abaca handicrafts.
Constant increases in rent eventually took a toll in his business, forcing him to close shop and instead join bazaars and trade fairs.
“I trusted that my products were unlike any other but I also knew that my pride will not sustain my business,” he says, adding he expanded into accessories due to stiff competition in his earlier products.
Using the same braiding technique he applies in making abaca bags, he developed accessories which he found appealing especially to foreigners and tourists to Manila.
“While I was confident that my braiding technique was too intricate to be replicated by others, I still developed other ways of braiding so that there’s variety in my products,” he says.
In a way, he says his business is able to display the ingenuity of Bicolano artisans when it comes to product design and development.
“Creativity among artists in our province is overflowing but it gets very little appreciation from the local market because most Filipinos are not very conscious about quality,” he laments, adding local buyers would rather spend on cheap imported but low-quality items.
“They still don’t know that one big industry is depending on their purchasing practices and appreciation to survive,” he adds.
Roy sells his handmade accessories from 100 pesos to a few hundred pesos more depending on the design and the material used.
Despite the challenges to his business, the passion his father instilled in him as a young boy remains.
“We were raised in a very optimistic and entrepreneurial environment because our father believed that it’s not just your educational attainment that will determine how you’ll turn out to be in life but your drive to work your way and the industry that depends on you, to success, no matter the challenges,” he says.
Get more information about RJCC Arts & Crafts
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