Mask Maker
Bacolod producer of papier mache masks grows his business with help from the Association of Negros Producers
By Mishell M. Malabaguio
Nevertheless, Vito toughened himself up and decided to try out his idea. With P5,000 in savings from his day job, he hired an artist to design some masks and made 30 pieces of them from the waste paper in his printing press. He named the masks after himself, Vito, and registered the product under his company, Vito Prints & Pieces. He decided to price them at P350 to P550 per piece and put them on display at the ANP Showroom. Later, he brought the product to Manila by joining ANP's 2005 National Trade Fair at the Rockwell Mall in Makati City.
His papier mache masks got sold out in no time at all. Soon after, there was a surge of orders for the masks from local and foreign tourists, enabling him to recover his capital after just two months of operation. Vito recalls that the demand for his masks was so high his artist and helper could not longer fill all of the orders.
Indeed, he recalls that there were times when he found it so hard to juggle his time doing three things on a given day: painting the masks himself, managing his printing press and the mask business, and teaching at the university. He says with a laugh: "There were even times when for lack of time, I had to go to class with paint still all over my hands. As an excuse, I would then tell my students, 'Look, these are the hands that work.'"
Sometime in 2006, Vito started getting orders for his masks from companies for use as corporate giveaways or party costumes. Vito felt that these orders were really for foreign tourists who would bring the masks home abroad. He became very apprehensive that being made of papier mache, the masks might get moist and turn soggy once they are delivered to other countries with climates unlike that of the Philippines. "I really had to do something about the possible problem because the international orders for my masks were getting so huge, and I was afraid of losing those orders," he recalls.
It was for this reason that Vito decided to shift from paper to fiberglass—a difficult and painful process for Vito because the shift required a much more sizeable investment, training in new production technology, and a bigger production area.
Fortunately for Vito, he became qualified for a loan from the ANP at about that time. He therefore applied for a P50,000 loan and used the proceeds to purchase raw materials, hire more workers, and run a training program for them. He knew nothing about fiberglass at that point, but the fiberglass supplier gave him and his staff training for free on how to use the material.
Because his business had already expanded so much, Vito decided to just focus on the production of the Vito masks. He delegated to his brother, Douglas Vito, the management of Papyrus Prints and the paper bag business. Despite Vito's busy schedule, however, he continued to teach (and still does) at the university.
Today, the Vito mask has become an all-year-round product that averages 200 pieces per month in sales, with the volume tripling during the month of the MassKara Festival in October. Depending on how elaborate the design, a mask is priced from P350 to P690.
