The Ilocos Norte that Magdalena Gamayo knows is only a couple of hours drive away from the capital of Laoag, but is far removed from the quickening pulse of the emergent city. Instead, it remains a quiet rural enclave dedicated to rice, cotton and tobacco crops. 2012 Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan awardee, Magdalena Gamayo still owes a lot to the land and the annual harvest. Despite her status as a master weaver, weaving alone is not enough.

Also, even though the roads are much improved, sourcing quality cotton threads for her abel is still a challenge. Even though the North is known for its cotton, it does not have thread factories to spin bales of cotton into spools of thread. Instead, Magdalena has to rely on local merchants with their limited supplies.  She used to spin her own cotton and brushed it with beeswax to make it stronger, but after the Second World War, she now relies on a market-bought thread. She still remembers trading rice for thread, although those bartering days are over. A thread is more expensive nowadays and of poorer quality. Often, she has had to reject samples but often she has little choice in the matter. There are less local suppliers of thread nowadays, a sign that there is less demand for their wares, but nonetheless, the abel-weaving tradition in Ilocos remains strong, and there are no better artists who exemplify the best of Filipino abel weaving tradition than Magdalena Gamayo.