🇵🇭 VIGAN • Meeting the Oldest Palaspas Weaver for Palm Sunday at 74 years old

"All I can see to the face of Lola Conchita is the sincerity in her craft -- that she loves it so much in spite of her age. She started weaving Palaspas when she was 64 years old and at that age, she finds the "need" to do it to earn for a living."

Sitting along the busy street called Liberation Boulevard, Lola Conchita waits for customers to buy her craft called palaspas. At 74 years of age, she is the the oldest among about the 50 palaspas weavers that have occupied the shoulders and sidewalk of the street just in front of the premises of the Simbaan nga Bassit in Vigan City.

I asked other palaspas weavers if I can interview them about this craft [that becomes an industry every Holy Week] and they pointed me to Lola Conchita who hails from San Juan, Ilocos Sur.

I approached Lola Conchita and asked me who am I. I introduced myself as a travel blogger who wants to feature their wonderful craft this Lent. 

Upon saying that I am a travel blogger, she immediately told me that she will be tuning in to the local AM radio program to hear the news. But I told her that I am not involved in any radio program and my audience is internet-based then she stayed silent.

Lola Conchita earns a living through weaving and most of the products that she makes are woven bags, ikamen, and palaspas for the Holy Week.

She will be sleeping at the streets of Vigan overnight and wait for the palaspas buyers the next morning as they celebrate the Palm Sunday.

Rain or shine, she has to stay and wait for the Palm Sunday and sell her woven palaspas.

Lola Conchita told me that she earns 1 thousand pesos every Palm Sunday and she even wished to have 2 Palm Sundays in a year so that she can earn 1000 pesos a day twice a year.

All I can see to the face of Lola Conchita is the sincerity in her craft -- that she loves it so much in spite of her age. She started weaving Palaspas when she was 64 years old and at that age, she finds the "need" to do it to earn for a living.

Lola tells me that this is the only way she can earn. It is the only skill she can share to help her family and from Lola Conchita, she has passed the skill to her children and grandchildren who were mostly with her this time also weaving palaspas to be sold during Palm Sunday.

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