No ordinary bag ladies

They’re the newspaper bag ladies, a tight coven of women in their early sixties who meet regularly for the sheer fun of creating fashionable handbags that may seem like a statement of political correctness, something close to respecting the environment. Their enterprise -- CCLTJ Recycled Crafts -- takes after the initials of their first names: Cora, Cora, Ledy, Tess, and Julie.   These five grandmothers (save one) weave bags out of recycled newspapers that they pay shantytown dwellers to roll in strips. They make them in bright acrylic colors, in squares, rectangles or triangles, some sparkling with beads, others flourished with geometrical strokes, painted with flowers or faces or animals or simple polka dots. This is the current flow of their business after having reached their retirement age, now that they have time on their hands and their creativity, stifled by years of stressful office work – three of them were bank executives, raising children, running a household – has broken free. To their surprise, the bags are selling quite briskly with just text brigades and word-of-mouth marketing strategies.   When they first had their sale in September, they sold more than half of the original 120 pieces. The price of the bags ranges from 60 pesos to as much as 750 pesos. Some of the bags even made it to Singapore for a sale at a local bazaar. There’s no heavy profit in it, they say; the returns go back into buying materials and paying for labor to help poor women sheltered by their neighborhood parishes in Cainta, Marikina, and Montalban. Leddy Agoncillo, who used to be a bank executive, says she simply finds fulfillment in expressing her creativity through the beautiful bags. "We're enjoying what we're doing," she says. 

  About two times a week, they get together, casually sharing designs, experimenting with their creativity, passing on work and checking quality. They catch up too on personal updates and entertainment gossip, and grieving over family loss while stuffed chicken and buko pandan salad streams in from the kitchen, courtesy of the cook. Julie Santos, whose daughter Cello runs a pizza and donut place on Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City where the bags are sold, enthuses, "At this point in our lives, it's not all about money. We're giving what we have, we'd like to bring out something we did. Tama na 'yon." They were classmates from St. Joseph’s College run by Franciscan nuns, from whom they learned simplicity and modesty. They bonded again in their senior years like ‘best friends forever,’ each of them pouring in about five thousand pesos as initial capital for ‘enjoying what we’re doing.’    They don’t want to expand; they just want the business as it is. As a treat to their endeavor, they plan to take a trip to Italy soon, these golden girls, where they plan to show off their newspaper bags. So, Prada, eat your heart out. – Written by Criselda Yabes with photos by Yasmin Arquiza, GMA News   For inquiries, call Julie Santos of CCLTJ Recycled Crafts at 09209135037