Kiva Stories from the Field

By Prem Thomas, KF9, Philippines

I haven’t picked up a violin in over 12 years despite playing for most of my childhood. But when I saw that CCT had made a Kiva loan to a violin-maker 3 hours outside of Manila, I knew I had to visit. Evelyn Gabute and her husband Angel recently received a 22,000 peso ($475) loan.

Angel Playing the Guitar

They used the entire loan to purchase maple wood from Germany to design and construct stringed instruments.

Walking into the Gabutes’ shop (which is also their home) reminded me of Gepetto’s workshop from Pinocchio.

Married for 22 years, the husband and wife team seems to have mastered the instrument manufacturing and repair business.

CCT Kiva Borrower Angel Gabute working on instruments

Angel builds and repairs violins, violas, cellos, drumsticks and guitars, while Evelyn handles the sales and operations. In addition, the duo perform demos at universities around the Philippines, as most of their customers come from music departments at neighboring schools.

Angel learned to make violins 15 years ago from the only other violin maker in the Philippines. Now Angel is his teacher’s competition and says they are no longer on face-to-face speaking terms. Today, Angel is working to build his own brand of master instruments called “Gabute”, and he hopes to some day be on par with great names like Stradivarius.

With a larger loan, Angel and his wife plan to move their workshop to a bigger space, hire two employees, and market their instruments in neighboring countries (Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, and eventually the US). A master violin may take up to 2 months to complete and costs about 15,000 pesos ($317 USD) to make. The violins can then be sold for 30,000 to 50,000 pesos ($635 to $1,058 USD) locally, but the real money comes when selling the violins in other countries where he expects to make $2,000 and as high as $5,000. Angel’s work has already been proven in other countries and one of his instruments is used in concerts by the Kabayao quintet, a family of Filipino musicians.

Angel says his main competitors for fine instruments come from Germany and Italy. He also mentioned that low-cost Chinese manufacturers sell violins for as little as 3,500 pesos ($74 USD). Fortunately for the Gabute’s, these instruments are often not playable (sound terrible) and warp in the humidity of the Philippines. A large portion of their business, in fact, involves modifying and repairing Chinese instruments so that they can be played as intended. Here’s a video of my trying really hard to play something on a recently modified Chinese violin.

I think my mom would be disappointed in all the money she spent on lessons when I was younger.

Although Angel’s skill is his craftsmanship, he is also a talented, self-taught musician. He recently won first place in a national guitar competition and was told by the head of Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) that while his instrumental major might be in crafting, his minor is in playing. Today, Angel is responsible for repairing all instruments at the CCP, and he was recently featured on national television for the second time.

Angel is also an amateur inventor. The machine he is using below was made and designed by the couple and put together from various parts they were able to purchase locally. He also made a much more convenient clip for violins:

Evelyn calls her husband’s talents a “gift from God” that have thankfully provided steady income for the family and allowed Angel to renovate his father’s house and willfully survive the recent typhoons in the Philippines.

Prem Thomas is serving as a Kiva Fellow working with the new field partner Center for Community Transformation Credit Cooperative (CCT) in Manila, Philippines.

To view currently fundraising loans from CCT click here.

You can also join our lending team here.