Updating Myself on Philippine Crafts

What I Must Know About the Filipino Artisan’s Creativity and Sustainability

I’ve always been interested in our own Filipino-made crafts, not merely because I often find those artifacts ‘cute’ and endearing, but because, in paying attention to their craftsmanship, I become more aware of other Philippine island treasures. This makes me feel truly an archipelagic creature, maybe an exaggerated reaction, but there.

As I come to know these practical and sustainable expressions of creativity, I also imbibe a cultural legacy that fills me with pride. I’m often enamoured by how Filipino artisans, despite all the odds in both production and distribution, still transform raw, indigenous materials into beautiful, durable, and useful objects. Filipino-made crafts embody both heritage and everyday practicality, making them essential to the understanding of local culture.

From Raw Materials to Fetishes

Cruising the “cultural artifacts display” at the Philippine Trade Center, I find myself re-acquainted with local raw materials transformed into practical fetishes. The word fetish may sound negative, but given the meticulous craftsmanship of bamboo, abaca, rattan, buri, pandan, coconut husk, wood, clay, shell, and recycled fabric, one would never simply stash these objects away in boxes for mass and thoughtless giveaways.

How to split bamboo without weakening it, how to soften abaca fiber into a chalecko, how to weave pandan into tablet sleeves, even how to mold and fire clay into charms and pendants, these techniques reflect centuries of experimentation and communal sharing of talent. At the same time, I appreciate how these designs have evolved to match present times.

Objects that appear simple are, in fact, highly sophisticated, with careful thought given to how they can remain strong, light, flexible, and still look fabulous.

My Choice for Creativity and Productivity as a Writer

As a content writer and teacher of literature and the arts, I am naturally drawn to practical objects that carry both function and cultural meaning:

Writing Implements and Storage Boxes:
I still aspire to own a baul but in the meantime, handwoven ikat and buri baskets for manuscripts and notebooks, bamboo and narra pen holders, T’boli t’nalak–fabric-bound journals, and paper recycled from talahib grass have become the objects of my gaze and daily use.

Reading Stands and Lamps:
I imagine miniature rattan chairs serving as book stands, lamps casting kaleidoscopic light through intricately designed banig and pandan shades, and papier-mâché monkeys molded from recycled paper and starch paste keeping my books from slipping and falling.

For Wrapping Gifts and Supot:
The bayong remains our classic supot, and its many designs show how it has evolved from a simple carrier of homebound goods into a sophisticated ladies’ bag, though I confess I still prefer its humble form. Beyond the bayong, there are eco-friendly wrappers and supot made from abaca fiber, piña cloth, and even woven banana bark.

My Desk Art, Décor, and Display:
What I often lack are enough spaces to frame my photographs with shell mosaics, handwoven textiles, driftwood frames, and wood carvings, frames that sometimes outshine the images they surround. These objects are not merely accessories; they are quiet delights even as I think, ruminate, or procrastinate. Their gentle, distracting presence, rather than pulling me away from my work, draws me back into it, mooring me in creative practice.

Affordable, Long-lasting, and Environment-Friendly

Easily, I favor a Philippine craft over any known or trendy brand, simply because it is inexpensive yet durable. Mass-produced plastic or anything disposable, though also often well-made, is not environmentally friendly. Then there is that aesthetic edge that comes as a freebie in a sustainable bayong hanging on a wall.

As the locally sourced raw materials make crafts accessible to both collectors and practical buyers, I get that high feeling of having something too cheap yet of very high quality. As an independent creative, I become almost giddy in realizing how these Filipino artisans integrate waste materials, natural dyes, and low-energy production methods. Everybody simply participates in giving back lightly to the land of the living through their ecological sensibilities.

Where to Go to Hunt for Filipino Craftsmanship

The recent opening of dedicated craft spaces at the Philippine Trade Center finally affirms the importance of Filipino craftsmanship. In the past, artisans were often exhibited only once a year in selected exhibition halls, sometimes even with minimal publicity.

Now, I can pursue my favorite hunt and be re-acquainted with tradition, learn about artisan-entrepreneurs, witness rural skills meeting urban markets, and encounter a young generation of culture bearers carrying the legacy of their masters.

Here, I roamed and stopped by stalls of:

• The Cordilleras (Ifugao, Kalinga, Benguet) – handwoven inabel textiles, woodcarving, traditional beadwork

• Ilocos Norte & Ilocos Sur – modernized inabel scarves, bags, accessories

• Metro Manila & urban collectives – contemporary fashion and homeware inspired by piña, abaca, and capiz

• Mindoro (Mangyan communities) – embroidery and basketry

• Cebu & Bohol – guitar-making, banig weaving, shell crafts

• Iloilo, Capiz, Mindoro, Quezon, Davao & Zamboanga – export-quality textiles, handwoven goods, abaca products

• Palawan, Lanao del Sur, Cebu & Leyte – cooperative-made handicrafts: mats, baskets, sustainable souvenirs, brassware

• Davao & Mindanao – T’nalak weaving, brasswork, okir woodcarvings

  I’m happy about my finds, although I keep wanting more.

Updating Myself From Consumption to Relationship

Going around the trade fair is not simply about browsing new Philippine craft products, but about deepening my connection with cultural artifacts. When I know who makes the baskets, where the mats come from, how paper is recycled, and who cuts the bamboo, I become more firmly rooted in the local art scene.

This reflects what the art critic Erlinda Alburo refers to as recognizing value through a semiotic understanding, another nose-bleed term, but one that simply means this: art is shaped by how a community values it. It is not merely an aesthetic object for the gaze, but a practical implement of daily life, shared by the natives of a place.

I am not at all advocating for Philippine crafts merely to preserve them behind glass. Rather, they gain more meaning and respect as I use them, adapt their functionality, and gift them to meet a creative’s needs. I am simply connecting my love for books, reading, and writing with this pragmatic appreciation of Filipino-made crafts, because they are also objects of the life of thinking and reflection that I have chosen to lead. Then, I am a Filipino, after all, and as I imagine our Islands, I need to mind our treasures.

Cited:

Alburo, Erlinda K. “Art as Cultural System: A Preliminary Study of Visayan Indigenous Aesthetics.” HUM 101: Art Appreciation, Cebuano Studies Center, University of San Carlos.