Buot Taup wants name change

CEBU, Philippines - Officials of Barangay Buot Taup are now lobbying to change the name of their barangay, saying residents have been living “in silent anguish and uneasiness” about the name of their place.

Buot Taup Barangay Captain Rosalina Callino yesterday went to see Cebu City Councilor Joey Daluz III, who is their district councilor, to craft a measure that will change the name of their barangay.

“Kung imohang tagsa-tagsaon og pagsabot, lahi gyud buot ipasabot (If you really think about it, the name connotes something negative),” Callino said, adding that the council has adopted in 2000 a resolution that would change the name of its barangay from Buot Taup to Barangay Pedro Calungsod.

Buot Taup was named as such because the barangay, a low-lying area amidst mountains and hills, is located between Mt. Samburio and Mt. Buot.

“Taup” in Cebuano means “deeply embedded.”

The council, according to Callino, in 2002 adopted the name of a Filipino martyr because Pedro Calungsod was beatified in that year.

While she admits the name Buot Taup is significant to them, she said meaning of words have evolved over the years and now, the mere mention of their barangay brings to mind something vulgar and indecent it makes some residents, especially the girls, blush with embarrassment.

Buot is a kind of root crop that grows in the wild.          Spiny but edible, the crop is not easy to reap, according to Callino.

Folklore has it that when harvesting the “buot” it must be done in silence. Noise tends to push the rootcrop even more deep into the ground and thus becomes deeply embedded or “taup.”

The “buot” was also a source of food during the World War II.

In 1927, the Americans opened a mine pit, the Cebu Coal Mines because the mountain ranges of the barangay had rich mineral ore. It was in the mid-1980s that the mining activities were stopped as the mountains had gradually become depleted.

The mountain barangay has a total land area of 933 hectares and has rivers. On its borders are barangay Bonbon in the north, Talisay City in the south, the barangay Pamutan in the east and barangay Sinsin on the west. –/JPM (FREEMAN)