And so to Pampanga we go for furniture

One started in the 1970s, making wooden carvings and Marine and Navy pins for the US bases in Clark and Subic. The other started as a subcontractor for basket and accessories exporters. Both are based in Pampanga, the province famous for its craftsmanship, and both started small – literally a garage operation for one – with only a handful of people making their products.

Today, while not the biggest exporters in Pampanga in terms of volume, they are certainly two of the best-known exporters. Betis Crafts, owned by Myrna and Boy Bituin, and Maze Manufacturing, owned by Judith I. Manarang, have survived Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption, factory relocations, economic and personal crises.

Betis Crafts traces its roots to the town/barrio that’s synonymous with ornate wooden products. (Betis has seven barangays but no municipal hall of its own; residents still don’t know whether it’s a town or a barangay of Guagua.) It manufactures some lines for the most high-end brand names in furniture: Ferguson Copeland and Marge Carson in the US East Coast, the former known for its elegant, ornate pieces and the latter for its generously scaled and luxurious pieces, and the hip London brand with the cool name And So to Bed, which sells beds, linen, lamps and accessories.

Aside from these, Betis Crafts also does period pieces for European clients. At one point, the Swedish company Ikea contracted Betis Crafts to make gold-leafed Gustavian mirrors for the refurbishment of a castle under the Swedish National Trust Program. Myrna Bituin explains, that they also have clients who pay royalty to the government or the estate to make reproduction furniture.

Working on an exclusive basis with their clients, Betis Crafts’ main market is the US with the United Kingdom coming in second while the Middle East is slowly gaining market share. "Before, the Middle East was buying from the US and they found out that some of the furniture were coming from the Philippines, so now they’re coming to our shows. The Middle East is an infant industry for us manufacturers here; the retailer buys it directly from the factories, they don’t have a middle distributor like the US."

A buyer usually brings his own design or the company creates the prototype. Its research and development team, composed of about 20 people including draftsmen and prototype makers, has expanded through the years. Their daughter, Alona Bituin, an interior design graduate, heads the department and she also designs the company’s own collections, like the one they’re exhibiting at the Philippine International Furniture Show (PIFS) from February 28 to March 3 at the World Trade Center.

Considered by many as one of the pillars of Betis’ furniture industry, Myrna Bituin credits Apung Juan Flores, a Panday Pira awardee, as having taught the craft to many carvers who now have their own businesses. "He was very giving with his talent. It helped that his clients included the Marcoses and he did a lot of work for Malacanang."

She has her own theory of how Betis started as the wood carving capital of the region. "I think the church had something to do with it. We have a 400-year-old church that is heavily carved. It’s possible that at the outset, the people in this area were not all carvers and the old priests taught them how to carve or brought craftsmen with them."

Betis Crafts started where Boy Bituin’s father left off. The elder Bituin was a maker of billiard tables and before he got married, it was Boy who continued the tradition. "My father-in-law is a craftsman, he can make stone precast, sculpture, and kalesas. My husband grew up in an environment of woodworking in Betis. Graduate lang ang father-in-law ko ng trade school, but he can do metal work and woodworking. They used to have machinery for grains and he’d hook it up to use for woodworking."

From handicrafts, JB Craft, as it was known then, was included in projects of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), which brought in foreign consultants and buyers. By 1987, the company was incorporated and the mother company named Betis Crafts.

"The competition has always been very stiff. From the start, we were not aiming for something great or to be very big. I would look into my own capability and strengths and match it with a particular market whose needs we could fulfill. We never got more orders than we could make."

Through its expansion, Betis Crafts always concentrated on its core competence: handcarving. Even though it continuously upgrades its machinery, it still seeks out projects that require a lot of handwork.

"Our machines make the cutting more efficient, but we still want to specialize in handcarving. What is important is that the workers themselves are good in what they’re doing. They have to love it and feel that their work is part of their system, their life."

One can’t ask for a better boss than Myrna Bituin. A teacher by profession, she never fails to encourage her workers and emphasize pride in their work. "I always tell them, when you see a piece of wood for the first time, it is nothing more than that. But when you finish working on it and you touch it, you know that this beautiful creation was done by your own hands."

It wasn’t smooth sailing through all the years, though. There was Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption in 1991, nearly wiping out the entire province. The Bituins were building their home in Betis at the time and when Bacolor sank under the succeeding lahar flows (Myrna’s mother and a sibling lost their homes), they stopped construction and moved the factory. Betis wasn’t affected, but nobody in Pampanga and some parts of Tarlac was really sure if they’d have a home after a rainfall. Betis Crafts transferred its factory to Concepcion, Tarlac, and the family rented a house in Angeles. As Myrna says, "Whenever I would go out of the house, I’d have a suitcase of clothes in the trunk of the car. We didn’t know if we were going to spend the night in Concepcion or in Betis."

Slowly, they’re bringing back the factory to Betis. Now, most of the work is done in Concepcion, Tarlac, (whose barrios were also hit by lahar) which, Myrna says, they will not leave as they have already trained the craftsmen from the town and invested in a five-building factory. The finishing of the furniture, however, is now done in Betis, and it is here where the company’s research and development is done.

They’re looking at Concepcion as an opportunity to expand and have also put up a veneering plant in Pampanga. "You have to give your workers security, the peace of mind from knowing they have something to take home to their family."

Aside from the daily work in the factory, the Bituins are heavily involved in uplifting the lives of their workers as well. They recently bought a one-hectare land which they have converted into a housing project. In it are three small factories where workers’ families can earn extra. "It’s not for free, they have to work hard for extra income," says Myrna.

One chair to sand, one chair to carve – it all adds up to one’s security and pride.

This work ethic is what she hopes will be followed by her children – three of whom are already involved in the furniture industry. Alona is in charge of research and development; Allan, a marketing graduate who also took up a course in furniture production in London, has put up his own company, More Than a Chair, which specializes in contemporary chair design and manufacturing; Leslie is an industrial designer by profession; and Lisa Marie is currently taking up production engineering.

Myrna admits that while the third generation is now running most family-owned furniture factories in the province, she’s not considering retirement just yet. "I love to work. In furniture, it’s the personal touch that makes each piece unique. Furniture making is different – it’s not like making Colgate or Kopiko. Each piece is a part of the maker."

Past the San Fernando exit of the North Luzon Highway, in Angeles City, is Maze Manufacturing Co, this time owned by a first-generation furniture maker. Judith I. Manarang, owner of Maze Manufacturing, started out as a dentist married to an orthodontist in Angeles City.

Judith, who looks more like a boutique owner than a furniture maker, got bored out of her wits waiting for patients to come knocking at her clinic. She thought, "I should be doing something else."

So she and her husband started subcontracting for the bigger export companies making baskets in 1991. They started in their garage at home, where each morning Judith had to take out the car and park it outside so the workers had space, and in the evening, "papaypayan ko sila para di antukin at lamukin."

After a while, she didn’t want to do baskets anymore. She didn’t want to do rattan either, which was being done by most Pampanga-based companies. The new thing then was metal or wire baskets and so they went into that.

Four years later, they had graduated from subcontracting and were doing the exporting themselves. They called their company Maze Manufacturing (they didn’t want to put their initials or their names in the corporate identity and she wanted to have daughter whom she’d call Macy). The name "Maze" reflected their business direction as well – liko-liko. "We didn’t know what we wanted to do," she says. "We did Pinatubo items and later terra-cotta with metal."

The problem with Pinatubo items was that it was new to the market and they spent half the time explaining to buyers what it was (though now it’s become big in export). Then they went into ceramics with metal, but breakage was eating up into their profits. When Judith discovered wrought iron furniture, she felt that she finally found her niche.

"I joined Citem when we were starting and we were lucky to be under PJ Aranador’s program," says Judith. "He taught me how to fix things, opened my eyes even more. I knew what I wanted but couldn’t translate it to furniture. He’s very selfless, very giving. At the time, we were doing well but our image was just one of the many manufacturers around."

One smart business move that Judith did was to join the shows and avail of all the seminars and training being offered by the government and the CFIP (Chamber of Furniture Industries of the Philippines). She was in the right frame of mind, too: ambitious coupled by the willingness to work hard.

"Even when I was subcontracting, I would go to the shows and look at the booths, and then I’d tell myself, the day would come when I’d have my own booth."

When that day did arrive, she started at the backend of the exhibition floor. She’d visit the booths in the prime spaces and tell herself, "Makakarating din ako sa gitna."

Maze didn’t really have the money back then, but Judith was immovable in her belief that a manufacturer must learn all that he can from foreign or local consultants and designers, and join the shows. From mere curtain dividers for the booth to plywood to a designer booth, Judith Manarang went through it all. "Every time we’d join a show, I’d save a little money for the next one." She reasons, "There’s a saturation point in everything, there comes a time when your regular clients will grow tired of your designs and leave you. There always has to be a back-up plan."

Judith also attended shows in Hong Kong and Frankfurt. At a Hong Kong show, she got only one buyer – but a very good one. "You don’t need 10 buyers na makukulit, pero isang mabait na malaki, okay na."

A buyer of hers that started in 1996 remarked when she saw her booth, "You started this small, now you’re big. I’m very good to you, huh?" Judith remembers, "He saw us grow from a single order of one container – back then nilalangaw kami at the show."

Judith lost her husband to lung cancer last year. For a period of time, she didn’t want to continue the business, but she thought of how hard they had worked, how they had managed to move their home-based factory to a one-hectare site. "In the two years since we found out that he was sick, we were able to put this up."

Maze Manufacturing employs 75 finishers, taking more when there are big orders, but Judith still makes the prototypes and does the first mixing of colors herself. Her main market is the Middle East with US a close second.

Design-wise, Maze tends toward the more ornate, which is a hit with Middle East buyers. "They like the designs with tassels and bows. The US market is starting to come for me especially with the accessories, hopefully the furniture will follow." Today, Maze is in the process of contemporizing its design with the help of PIFS design consultant Val Padilla.

"Until now," says Judith, "I’m continuing to learn. I’m like a sponge, absorbing and listening to the experiences of older manufacturers. Along the way, you meet angels who help you."

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For inquiries about the Chamber of Furniture Industries’ exhibit, call 632-90-07, 631-28-34. For Maze Manufacturing, call their Angeles City office at (45)322-06-37, (45)893-16-51. For Betis Crafts, call their Betis office at (45)900-03-09 or their Manila showroom at 850-39-62.