Bayambang: What's in a Name?
(A quick look into the town name's etymology)
Where exactly did the name Bayambang come from? The answer depends on who or which reference is consulted.
Research has shown that this name refers to a certain species of Bauhinia, B. acuminata or B. malabarica, or what is called alibangbang parang in Tagalog. What causes some confusion is that there are other species of Bauhinia that are referred to as alibangbang in Tagalog and other languages and are also called culibangbang in Pangasinan: for instance, B. purpurea and B. variegata. (Note that Bauhinia species have been reportedly renamed Piliostigma.)
For the sake of clarity and precision, B. acuminata or B. malabarica is the one being referred to as culibangbang by Bayambangueños, as it is the one being traditionally used as panselar or pangsigang (souring agent), specifically its flowers and shoots, which taste sour. What distinguishes it from the other culibangbang species is its simple white little flower, red stalks, and a leaf shape that is rounder and less butterfly-shaped than that of B. purpurea. In contrast, the latter has a pink, orchid-like flower and reportedly inedible shoots, and is of foreign origin and believed to have been planted in the '70s or earlier for ornamental purposes then later spread throughout the town.
The problem with the term "culibangbang," however, is that it doesn't quite exactly account for the word "bayambang," as local observers point out. Culibangbang is indeed anomalous because it is an Ilocano word meaning butterfly, and butterfly in Pangasinan is kumpapey. The Ilocano people were not in Pangasinan until they came migrating en masse during the Spanish regime. Moreover, the word bayambang in fact existed as an old term per se, referring either to three different plants and to something else.
First of all, bayambang, it turns out, used to be the Tagalog name for an entirely another plant, Amaranthus spinosus (Linn.) or uray or kulitis, and then another, Celosia or Deeringia polysperma, an ornamental amaranth species. Notably, "bayangbang" is also a Tagalog term for the sword fern or Nephrolepis hirsutula.
Secondly, in Pangasinan, the word bayambang is a native word that refers to a place that is madanom (Pangasinan word for matubig or waterlogged), which exactly describes some flood-prone barangays of the town today lying along Agno River. In fact, one barangay is named Paragos ("literally, a place where water flows," but actually means "irrigation"), while another is Managos ("flowing"). This probably explains why a barangay in Infanta, a town in western Pangasinan, is named Bayambang as well.
Another claim is that there are awarans (ancient narratives) that mention "balangabang" as the precursor to the name Bayambang, balangabang being the true indigenous term for the native species of culibangbang or alibangbang. This hunch, of course, is not far-fetched at all, as it is more commonsensical and thus far more plausible.
The official website of the Pangasinan provincial government has a slightly different version, though: "The name of the town, according to the legend, came from the name of a plant called 'balangbang.'" To locals, however, "balangbang" is the native term for "hip," although it could also be a variant of balangabang.
What complicates this origin story further is another theory that Bayambang might have come from bayangbayang, an old native term for scarecrow.
In the absence of solid documentary evidence, it is hard to establish with definitive certainty where the town's name came from, but balangabang, balangbang, and bayangbayang are a lot more plausible than culibangbang, but the mere existence of the term bayambang itself should be of foremost consideration, given that it is the same exact word as the name of the town.
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