40 Igting and Tabiola
provide work opportunities to residents of a resettlement area in Towerville, City
of San Jose del Monte, Bulacan Province, Philippines. Many of the residents were
informal settlers who were compelled to relocate due to urban development projects of
the government or whose dwellings were devastated by typhoons and floods. Ninetyeight percent of the members are women. Igting specializes in sewing custom-made
uniforms, men and women’s apparel, bags, and pouches.
For every product, half of the value price goes to labor (the so-called “piece raters”
or members who earn from every piece of product they produce in a day), while
the other half goes to the trust fund of Igting (used for electricity and water bills,
maintenance of equipment, the wage of “daily raters,” and savings).2 Members also pay
their Social Security System (SSS) and Home Development Mutual Fund (HDMF)/
Pag-IBIG monthly contributions with Igting counterpart funds. As of July 2020,
there are 33 members who are piece raters (including three who are home-based) and
ten members who are daily raters. Igting suspended work from March 15 to April 15,
2020. At the time of this pandemic, resumption of their work solely depends on the
availability of job orders from their clients.
Igting sewing center is located at Lot A-2 Upper Quarry, Brgy. Minuyan Proper,
City of San Jose del Monte, Bulacan. As of August 9, 2020, there are 493 confirmed
COVID-19 cases in the city, with 228 active cases, 245 recoveries, and 20 deaths
(SJDM PIO 2020).
For this report, three key informants were engaged in a series of interviews.
Wennie Santos (47 years old) and Bea Rodriguez (61 years old) are pioneering
members of Igting who hold managerial positions in the social enterprise. Lea Viray
(54 years old) is an officer of the organization.
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
On lockdowns
“If you do not let me out, would you be able to feed my family—
all twelve mouths?”3
In the case of Barangay Minuyan Proper, residents were only allowed to go out
of the confines of the community during Wednesdays and Saturdays. This rule
2 “Daily raters” are members of Igting with managerial roles with fixed daily wage depending on
their function in the social enterprise (e.g., marketing head, production head, supervisor, line
leader, cutter, purchaser, finance officer, etc.). Daily wage ranges from Php 250 to 350.
3 In this chapter, all quotes were translated to English from the original Filipino.
Select target paragraph3
Add to table of contents