The Ilocos Times

By Leilanie G. Adriano Staff reporter PINILI, Ilocos Norte—In the small barangay of Lumbaan, this town, at least 25 farmers have seen a great opportunity to increase their income and at the same time to rekindle their sense of pride through reviving a dying cotton industry. Elders recall Lumbaan used to have cotton fields, an important raw material in the making of inabel loom-weaving products. But as tobacco industry grew robust in this part of Luzon, farmers shifted to tobacco farming, leaving behind cotton. Cotton, a natural fiber used to be the fiber of choice among traditional weavers but with the scarcity of the material in the last decades, weavers have switched to synthetic threads imported from China. Due to lack of raw materials, the local loom-weaving industry here also suffered almost a natural death until   two years ago , Dr. Joven Cuanang, a well-known patron of the arts and neurologist who just retired as Medical Director of St. Luke’s Hospital, was a