Hi-yo, silver!

OVER 40 years in the business of handcrafted silver and sustaining one of the things Baguio City is known for have become the driving force of Pilak Silver Shop amid challenges.

Rommel Marcelo, the 47-year-old manager of the family-owned business, said the craft shop is the lone surviving homegrown brand that creates its own designs.

«Baguio's silver craft is generational, from the grandparents, to parents and then to the children who soon dip their hands into the business in preparation for their eventual management,» Marcelo said.

The Pilak Silver Shop traces its roots in the mid-70s when Marcelo's parents, Romeo and Preciosa, opened the Aloha Souvenir Shop at Mines View Park.

In 1977, the couple discovered the potential of silver as a jewelry line of business and shifted to everything silver, eventually changing the shop's name to Pilak, the Filipino word for silver.

In an interview with the Philippine News Agency in 2018, Preciosa said former first lady Imelda Marcos helped promote Baguio's silver products to foreign countries through the National Cottage Industry Development Authority.

In the past years, Marcelo said the city's silver craft industry went through challenges, especially the competition with imported machine-made items that are much cheaper.

But instead of giving up, the younger Marcelo accepted their limitations in terms of handcrafting and invested in the strengths that kept them going — the skills of the artisans who transformed silver into works of art.

«When all seemed hopeless due to the emergence of imported machine-made silver that took the silver market by storm, we continued. We know that some of our works cannot be replicated by machine, so we concentrated on those works and placed them up front in our product presentation, with the end goal and hope that the market would continue to appreciate our works. Fortunately, it did, and it helped us sustain the craft and our livelihood,» he said.

«Saying enough, let us close, is not as easy as it seems, especially if your workers have become part of the family, and you know that their enthusiasm continues to grow,» he added.

With only Pilak having a physical store that makes designs using