After leaving a high-paying job in a Hong Kong-based exporting company more than twenty-five years ago, Helen Rulloda never doubted she was making the right decision. Driven by a strong faith that she was headed to her path of true calling, she eventually stumbled into a little-known handicraft trade in her home province. Recognizing the beauty of an industry where generation-to-generation handing down of artisan weaving skills persisted, Helen seized the occasion to answer her calling.
How La Union’s Woven Baskets Became one of Kultura’s best sellers
An advocacy to champion bridging small-medium enterprises (SMEs) to local communities became Helen’s main motivation. Soon after, she started marketing the fine baskets handcrafted by weavers from strips of branches of labtang trees to various stores and malls.
“I went home to La Union in 1994. I saw neighbors and relatives weaving. I thought of offering these to the malls.”
Presenting an Impressive Basket Case
Now in her early fifties and having faced the global pandemic crisis, Rulloda’s faith and commitment had been tested. Tragedy struck when her former community coordinator suffered from depression due to financial problems, later succumbing to Covid-19 in 2020. This drove Helen to pitch new samples to Kultura—SM’s specialty store selling local crafts and handicrafts.
Two new communities showed her new designs. Impressed by the quality of the woven labtang and bamboo baskets, she presented the samples to Kultura.
The pandemic was not a hindrance to securing orders in bulk. “After I showed our samples, Kultura ordered in bulk. Their purchase order now reached three million pesos,” Rulloda shared in delight. “Before, we sent orders to twelve malls. Under Kultura, we deliver to forty-five stores including provincial stores,” she added.
The partnership with Kultura also spilled over to helping Rulloda achieve some of her dreams. “I was able to buy a small farm, renovate my house, and travel to seven countries all because of this business,” Rulloda shared.
A Business of Second Chances
When Helen Rulloda started tapping additional communities to meet Kultura’s increasing bulk orders, it also opened doors for second chances to several people who had lost their jobs during the pandemic.
“I used to work for a lending company in San Fernando,” shared Rex Villarosa, one of the basket weavers in the community of Brgy. Ar-Arampang in Balaoan. “When businesses closed, my boss had no more money to lend. I lost my job,” he added.
Already a skilled basket weaver since he was a teenager, Villarosa first went back to weaving during the pandemic, working for a roadside store selling woven materials made from baging. That didn’t last long because his daily take-home pay of two hundred fifty pesos was not enough to sustain his family’s everyday needs. Fortunately, around April of that year, Helen started increasing the orders for woven baskets to meet the demand from Kultura, and Villarosa became one of the basket weavers the community gathered.
“Now with the orders from Kultura, if I make big boxes, I earn four hundred fifty to five hundred pesos a day,” added Villarosa.
As neighboring towns in the province—specifically the tourism hub of San Juan—suffered great economic losses during the pandemic, the community of Ar-Arampang experienced the opposite. “Kultura’s continuous orders are such a big help. Since April, our production never stopped,” said Lolita Valdez, the community’s coordinator of basket weavers in Ar-Arampang.
To date, in the barangay of Ar-Arampang alone, there were at least fifteen active basket weavers benefiting from the collaboration between Helen Rulloda and Kultura.
Asked what she thought were the reasons that had made it possible for her to tap local communities for a collaboration with Kultura, Helen stated the power of faith, the importance of hard work and dedication, plus the consistent high quality of products being produced by the community basket weavers themselves.
“I always wanted to deliver quality baskets to strengthen our relationship with our clients,” said Helen.
Answering a Call
To Helen Rulloda, the journey that took her to head a community-based SME and into a fruitful collaboration with Kultura was a testament to her heeding a call. “I am grateful to God because I am just a steward of this business to help share the blessings with other communities,” she said.
It turned out that the call Rulloda was alluding to also made its way to the weavers of the communities in several towns of La Union and Kultura, who both answered with fervor. Who knew, this once obscure handicraft basket industry of La Union might soon join the growing list of SMEs that became household names in the Philippine market after partnering with SM. Looking at the commitment of both Helen Rulloda and her weavers in further improving their business, the chances were high that they would achieve just that.
Enterprise Livelihood Impact
“I highly encourage other entrepreneurs to also invest in local manufacturing and handicrafts. Why? Aside from the fact that there’s a growing demand for sustainable products, our weavers are an integral part of our cultural heritage and yet they remain vulnerable to economic crises. Let’s help them improve the quality of their lives. My wish and prayer are to pass it on from generation to generation so that local weavers will be proud of who they are and what they do. Let us keep our Filipino pride alive by helping each other out. And hopefully, we will be able to grow local, go global.” — Helen Rulloda, Social Entrepreneur
