Besides the two factories mentioned, there is also a considerable quantity of shoes manufactured in small shops throughout the City of Manila and the provinces that make their shoes entirely by hand and use a great deal of material produced in the Philippines, especially sole leather and portions of the upper leathers. These small shops turn out products of good quality and make most of their shoes on individual orders.
Hats.—The making of Philippine hats is almost a household industry. Hats manufactured here are as durable and as beautiful as those produced in Panama. Philippine buntal, buri, hemp, and bamboo hats make attractive and comfortable wear. The towns of Baliuag, Bulacan, and Lucban, Tayabas, have become famous for the excellent hats they produce.
The hat industry in the Philippines, although exploited only to a small extent, made it possible for the Islands to record exportation on this product in 1919 amounting to 1,470,026 pesos as compared with only 753,942 pesos worth of hats imported for the same year.
Of the 1,470,026 pesos’ worth of hats sent out of the Islands in 1919, 1,280,968 pesos’ worth went to the United States. With the increasing popularity which Philippine hats enjoy in the American market, hat exportation to the United States is expected to reach greater proportions. China, with its hundreds of millions of souls, many of whom have already begun to wear hats, is also a big potential market for this Philippine product.
There is one large hat factory in the Philippines which manufactures straw hats, wool hats, and also umbrellas. Its actual annual production reaches half a million straw hats and half a million woolen hats.
Matches.—There is one match factory in the Philippines which supplies a portion of the local need, averaging 70,000 to 80,000 tins annually. One tin contains 1,440 small boxes. This factory has been in operation since eighteen years ago. The Philippines imported last year matches worth 949,205 pesos, while its exports of the same product were only 33,207 pesos.
Pearls.—Pearls abound in Philippine waters, especially in the neighborhood of Mindanao and Sulu. The Japanese go as far as Sulu to fish for pearls. Merchants from Paris and London come to the Islands to get their supply of pearls.
Until 1910 the pearl industry of the Philippines was totally in the hands of Moros and Chinese in Mindanao, who sent their pearls directly to Singapore for sale. After that year jewelry houses in England and France sent their representatives here to purchase pearls, and since then large quantities have been shipped directly to those countries. At present not even one per cent of the pearls fished in Philippine waters remains in the Islands. The rest are shipped out of the country to be manufactured into beautiful jewels, which are sent back to the Islands to be sold at high prices. In 1919 the Islands exported raw pearls valued at 152,543 pesos, while the manufacture pearls that were imported were worth 155,150 pesos.
Buttons.—The raw materials used for the manufacture of shell buttons are trocha, pearl shell, green snail, and the chambered-nautilus. The Islands have an abundant supply of these shells. They are found in the waters of Jolo and also in the vicinity of Sitanki, and the regions farther north, such as the Tañon Strait and along the coasts of most of the Visayan Islands; some are found along the coasts of Pangasinan and Ambos Camarines.
In 1918 the United States alone imported 2,500,000 pesos’ worth of buttons; the Philippine exports of this product showed only 251,144 gross in quantity, valued at 231,811 pesos; while the Islands imported buttons worth 119,787 pesos. Japan is supplying one-half of the button importation of America. In 1922, imports were valued at ₱216,086.