The Sangguniang Panlungsod decided to postpone the training of butchering to be conducted by the Technical Skills and Development Authority until the TESDA can submit a formal project brief to the city chief executive. This program is supposed to train young people to prepare for high paying butchering jobs abroad. This is a worthy project but there seems to be a snag in its implementation. There is no formal curriculum in butchering in Bohol or perhaps in the Philippines. Butchering means slaughtering and preparation of selected and approved animals for meat. It does not only involve killing the beast or fowl but have cutting it up into pieces. There are even religious practices involved if one is to work abroad. There are those who insist in kosher meat and there are those who require halal products. Certain rituals are to be observed before butchering.

In some countries, there is a requirement that says that the animals are to be killed painlessly. Some are rendered unconscious by an electric shock, some stunned with a sledgehammer, anything mechanical that may make them no longer conscious to pain before they are bled. Killing is perhaps the easiest part. Sadists have no place in abattoirs.

It is the cutting up where the problem will be found. It does not only mean dismembering the carcass. There are certain rules to be observed and most Boholano butchers are hardly knowledgeable in it. All they do is to cut up the meat into manageable pieces. When a buyer comes and asks for a kilo or more, the buyer just point to the display and the seller slices out the correct weight out of the slab. That is not the way abroad. Before we go further, we digress so we could make our point clearer. When fishing for manta was allowed, any catch brought home was cut up and each piece was sold for different prices. The meatiest part, which is in the rump and over the digestive organs were cut away. Those will bring. high price. The wings are cut off and sold separately. Then the head with the mouth flippers were separated from the body. In short, the manta body is cut up following a traditional pattern. The buyers state his preference and he gets the completely particular piece or a part of it.

Abroad, the carcasses of butchered animals be it cattle, swine, sheep or goat are cut according to a certain style or pattern. Each part has a particular name. There is the rump, the loin, sirloin, brisket, spare ribs, T-bone steak, chuck steak and so on. Those come from all parts of the body and those are cut in a desired manner. The art of butchering comes from the manner the meat is cut up and the shape it must assume, the implements to be used and so on. In some aspect, butchering is like tailoring though tailoring may be simpler. If a tailor makes pants, after measuring the customer he cuts a piece of cloth into patterns, to make the leg, waist, pockets and so on. So is with formal butchering. Customers abroad do no bother re-cutting the meat. They prefer to cook it as it is. In hotels and restaurants, diners are particular about their orders. Meat has to be served according top traditional shapes. That is what makes butchering abroad complicated.