As stated earlier, almost everything that is being said about the history of Betis’ furniture‑making tradition was only derived from oral history transferred from generation to generation, half of it founded on myth. One story relates that the name Betis was derived from a certain species of a tree named bassia betis merr. It was said that the tree was so huge it could shade a wide area of land, which later became the seven barrios that comprise the town today. But there came a time that the tree withered, perhaps due to old age, and died. Because of economic reasons, the natives wasted no time. They applied their productivity and started to carve and made different utilitarian objects out of the tree’s debris, which they used for trade. Today, part of the folklore of the town is the belief that the very foundation of Betis church as well as the carved main door, which shows the Gates of Paradise and the retablo, were made out of the wood taken from this fallen gigantic tree.
But this is just a mere myth and part of the folklore of the town. The story is quite interesting and adds to the rich cultural heritage of Betis. But the real story comes from Blair and Robertsons’ book entitled The Philippine Island printed in 1910.
While on their way to San Lucar from Siviglia (modern-day Seville in Spain), aboard a ship, Magellan’s biographer Antonio Pigafetta recorded an account of passing through a river called Gadalcavir. The river is located on a place along a community of Moors called Gioan del Farax. This happened in the first quarter of the 16th century—a time when this fleet of Magellan’s never yet reached what was to be known as the Philippines.
Gadalcavir is an Arabic word, which means “a wide river.” The Moors were the ones who renamed this place after a conquest with the Vandals in the 8th century CE. But the original name of this wide river was Betis.
Betis was a pre-Roman name given to the wide river lying along these banks of Iberian peninsula—the modern-day Spain. During this time, this western part of Spain that is now the present-day Seville was called Hispania Baetica—the Latin name of the place where the word Betis was taken. Original dwellers of this place were the Romans.
Perhaps the world is too small for Christians and Moslems that everywhere they go, they always meet at a certain point. In 1576, 55 years after the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in the Philippines, there were Spanish reports under the command of the last Spanish conquistador Juan de Salcedo about the Muslim inhabitants dwelling along the two major rivers in Pampanga: one was the Lubao River, the other was what is now known as the Betis River. The fleet tried to pacify the Moslems living in this place. But the Moslems were resistant and could hardly be defied. It was in this physical resemblance of Gadalcavir to this particular wide river of Pampanga where the Moors dwelled that the Spaniards named the place as Betis. It took over a year before the Spaniards were able to pacify the place.
Betis, now an independent town of Guagua, was one of the Hispanized names along with the other Pampangan communities in the last quarter of the 16th century. Pampanga was then ruled by the one notably named as Malangsic. He and his people were Moslems. But everything changed when the Augustinians arrived in these places. From then on, they started to build their churches. Starting 1660, under the authority of Father Jose De La Cruz, the preliminary structure of a church in Betis was built. It took over a year before the final structure was realized. This church is still the same one that has remained at the heart of the Betis community. Today, it is called the Betis church, in the town called Betis.
Sources:
Blair, Emma Helen, d. 1911, ed. The Philippine Islands. (1493-1898).
Cavada y Mendez de Vigo, Agustin de la. Historia, Geografica, Geologica, y Estadistica de Filipinas. 1894. Originally published in Manila, Impr. De Ramirez y Grauder, 1876.
Coseteng, Alice M. L. “The Good Wood”. Filipino Heritage: The Making of a Nation. Vol. 4. Ed
by Alfredo Roces. Quezon City. Lahing Filipino Publication. 1977-78.
Henson, Mariano. The Province of Pampanga and Its Towns (AD 1300-1965). 4th revised edition.
City of Angeles, Pampanga. December, 1965.
Larkin, John. The Pampangans: Colonial Society in Philippine Island. Originally published in 1972
by the Regents of the University of California. New Day Publishers. Quezon City, Philippines. 1993.
“Marxist Sociological Perspective”. Art History’s History. Vernon Hyde Minor. Phaidon Press.
1989.
Betis made: a pipanganang la mesa at the center, a mandukit at work, exquisitely designed wood-carved chairs, the façade of the town’s Agustininan Church, which was built in 1754.