Manila hires jobless sewers to make 1M masks

DIFFERENTLY-ABLED SEAMSTRESS Despite having just one leg, 32-year-old Sara Villarama can make up to 100 face masks a day at the Unibersidad de Manila where she and around 50 other displaced sewers and master cutters are on a mission to make a million masks for residents and front-liners in the city. Villarama, who used to sew bed sheets and pillow cases in her home before the pandemic, is grateful to be working at this time, getting paid P4 per mask by the city government. —MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

MANILA, Philippines — The Manila City government has hired around 50 unemployed seamstresses and tailors, some of them elderly or disabled, to make a million washable face masks for residents.

In an online broadcast, Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso said around 680,000 people in 897 barangays as well as front-liners would receive one face mask each.Production began on Monday in a livelihood center at the Universidad de Manila. The sewers who lost their jobs during the nearly three-month lockdown in Metro Manila would earn up to P2,000 a day, depending on the number of masks they turn out.

Domagoso said that distribution of the masks would likely begin within the next two days with the project expected to be completed within 40 days.

“We will not be distributing them all at once; it will depend on the production rate per day. But instead of having [them] stocked inside a warehouse, we will immediately distribute them to various barangays,” he added.

“The face masks will be given to you for free so that you will not have to spend money on buying them or having them made for you. We are also glad that we were able to generate jobs for our elderly citizens through this initiative,” Domagoso said.

The production of 1 million face masks, including the daily salaries of the sewers, will be funded by donations.