Cesar was born in 1972 in Bicol, southern part of Luzon, Philippines as the youngest child.   Surrounded with sewing works since both his parents were tailors, Cesar took the initiative to learn the knowledge and skills in sewing from his parents.  He recounts the many times that he used to play underneath his mother’s sewing machine while she works, he has been used to the sounds of a sewing machine since at a very young age. His all family moved to Hermosa, Bataan after his father died in 1982. Since he finished high school, he was suffering in severe poverty because of no more income of his mother, then fortunately had an opportunity of informal education regarding computer repair for 3 months in the program of seminary. After 1992 till 2003, he worked on an assembly line for a sewing factory making slippers earning just 150pesos per day. The factory would sell each slipper for 100 pesos, the money he was earning was barely enough for his living even as a single man. While working there, in 2000, he had started to study computer repairs practically and was fixing computer parts from home. There was hardly any money from these jobs because not many people in the area had computers. So Ceaser went back to being a tailor as well as fixing computers.

With his wife, he raises four children, oldest son who is 18 years old attending vocational course about computer networking in college, second one who is 16 year-old girl at 4^th in high school, 13year old girl at 6^th elementary school and 4 year-old youngest child in Day Care Center.  In 2005, Carmen Dagami, his neighbor who has been supplying bags to Profairtrade (formerly known as PREDA Fair Trade), introduced him to the Sales Manager, who asked him to submit samples of products that he could make out of recycled drink pouches.   Profairtrade inspired the man to use good quality materials to make his product. Now working for himself with Profairtrade, he sells a pair of slipper for 100 pesos each, they use better quality which means they are longer lasting.

The money he earns with the assistance of Preda Fair Trade helps him to have his own home and provide an education for his children. In 2005, as getting order of recycled items from Profairtrade he could afford to move out from his mother’s house and build his own small house, also helped Cesar with financial assistance to be given 30-40% advance payment of full amount set order which is useful to purchase materials for dealing with the amount of order within deadline, moreover, fair trade profit share(annual bonus) given to him serves as a stimulus for him to put effort into creating new designed items spontaneously. For instance, in 2006, he has an order amounting to P12,000 and 5% of that amount was given back to him as his profit share.  In 2012, his effort  in continuously introducing new designs has paid off when he received an order of Php 168,000  for his recycled jeans bags,  this reflects increasing order for his products. It specially helps him invest in buying materials for experiment of possibility to various new designs, change his worn-out manual sewing machine into high-speed electronic sewing machine, which has been loaned to him by Profairtrade, paid back on installment basis. And he mentioned that Profairtrade has provided seminars such as “Human rights”, ”Peps(Public Education and Preventive Seminars)”, “Skills training”,”Product development, costing and pricing”, assisted Ceaser with establishing networks for obtaining product materials and discovering more clients. In the past Cesar would only get jobs from people who walked past his house, but now, through word of mouth and Profairtrade’s assistance Cesar gets more jobs.

Cesar appreciates the assistance that he has received from Profairtrade, his hard work and dedication has lead to him giving back to his community.  As a result of receiving more work, at times Cesar employs his neighbors to assist him with large orders.  He tries to incorporate recycled plastic as part of an environmentally friendly way of creating products.  This business model of environmental conservation has made him well known and as a result received more orders.  Cesar says not only is he receiving work but he is contributing to helping the environment.

Preda Fair Trade has inspired Cesar to do more than just the conventional slippers and bags.  He has a vast number of different bags that he can make and also makes different styles of slippers.  Through studies that Preda Fair Trade has provided, Cesar believes that if you can provide a variety of products, then you become more marketable to clients.

Cesar is currently in development of a prototype product involving denim, at this point in time it is still his little secret, but he can’t wait to have it completed and be able to offer it to his customers.  Once again because of Profairtrade, Ceaser has been able to create a marketable product that is different from the rest. That’s why he could have relatively big amounts of order of bags and slippers. He is conscious of environmental problems and doesn’t want to rely on free distributing social service by Profairtrade. As a partner, it was very impressive he trusts Profairtrade’s constant exertions and struggle to maintain partnership with poor producers.