"There is donor fatigue even among those who regularly give. By selling them something they like, a donor gets back something while contributing to a bigger cause. It’s not a selfish thing, it’s a very human reaction," she said.
Tuason designs and glues flowers to bags. She personally goes to Divisoria to buy paper or fabric flowers and to Quiapo to buy the native bags. "I tried leather bags but the flowers wouldn’t stick," she said.
"It started during a time when I couldn’t sleep and was losing weight. Rather than toss in bed, I would fix the bedroom and rearrange things. Then, I started gluing my silk flowers to my bags," she said.
Tuason never got to carry around her creations for long. In social occasions, friends would ask her where she got the unusual bags and she would, then and there, give them away.
"It was my young grandson, Jose Fores, who suggested that I take money for the bags instead of giving them away," she said.
"One night, I finished 30 giveaways . I worked up to three in the morning. I finished two and then asked my helpers to do the rest, following the pattern I made. But I had to re-do the 28 bags because they were not done correctly," she said.
"If she hired somebody, it will never be the same. Mercy is her work, which she is doing for her faith," said June Keithley-Castro, one of the primary movers behind Center for Peace which showcases and accepts orders for Tuason’s bags.
Most of Tuason’s bags are one-of-a-kind, based on the color scheme and kind of flowers selected by the buyers. The buyer can bring along their own bag or ask Tuason to include the cost of the bag in the final price computation, which is still significantly lower than similar made-in-Korea bags now found in flea markets.
In the case of another Forbes Park resident, Mila Puyat, paper-mache bags made by the mentally retarded were decorated by Tuason for resale in a charity function.