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Why we should embrace our local fibers according to MARIBEL ONGPIN, chairman emeritus of HABI: The Philippine Textile Council.

- TICIA ALMAZAN

DECADES AGO IN BAGUIO, there were hardly any cars in the off-season. At least that’s what Maribel Ongpin says. “We walked everywhere,” she reminisces, her smile audible through the cellphone where we’re conversing. The eldest of four was born in Manila’s Philippine General Hospital, but proudly declares herself to be from the City of Pines. Their family’s move was instigated by her father’s work in the mining industry; her two sisters and brother were later born in the plateaued city.

Maribel shares she loved living in Baguio, where they knew everyone and patronized local craft. “We would always use placemats and napkins and tablecloths that were from the Cordillera! So of course we appreciated it. It was part of our environment, seeing these fabrics,” she says.

One would surmise that this early exposure to local weaves is what propelled Ongpin to serve as the founding chairman (at present, chairman emeritus) of HABI: The Philippine Textile Industry. In actuality, the role sprung up nearly out of nowhere.

“First of all, I never knew anything about textiles,” she admits. When Maribel was the president of the Museum Foundation of the Philippines in 2008, the Indonesian textile society arrived in Manila and inquired about a Philippine textile society. Had they arrived in the 1990s, they would have found what they were looking for in Katutubong Filipino, an early attempt at a textile society headed by then-First Lady Amelita Ramos, designer Patis Tesoro, and Dr. David Baradas. “Unfortunately, it did not prosper,” explains Maribel, “and by that I mean Ramos was already way into the end of the term.”