LIKE IT or not, too, Bumbay buffalo will be the ingredient local corned-beef makers will be using for sometime yet to justify labeling their products as meat. For now, having a full-blown local carabao industry that produces milk and meat remains just a hazy vision. Many agriculturists partly blame this to the Filipinos’ aversion to carabao meat, which they used to call carabeef. Filipinos have the impression that carabao meat is tough, an impression that goes back to an old law, which agriculturists refer to as the “7-11 slaughter ban.” Then and now, carabaos were kept mainly as draft or work animals; it used to be that farmers were forbidden from slaughtering carabaos unless these were older than seven years if male and 11 years if female. As a result, only retired carabaos that had lean and tough meat ended up in the wet markets.

	Supermarket shelves attest to our love of corned beef.

The ban has long been lifted but the aversion remains. Many Filipinos are still unwilling to partake of carabao or buffalo meat and will probably not relish the idea of knowing it is actually what’s in processed meat, especially corned beef. But it’s not only because they think they will lose their teeth trying to bite into carabao meat. If Hindus have sacred cows, Filipino farmers tend to regard their trusty work companions pretty much like sacred carabaos, treating these almost like family. It would be unthinkable for many of them to regard an animal they had depended on for so long and spent many hours with out in the field as potential dinner. As PCC project manager Nur Baltazar observes,’“Ang kalabaw kakambal na ng pagsasaka, pantrabaho (Carabaos are seen as crucial in farming, as important work helpers).””

Such notions have left the likes of Cruz sighing. Cattle beef has always been thought of as high-end or elite beef, but according to Cruz, the meat of a two-year-old carabao is just as tasty as the prime cuts consumers get from the best cattle meat. He also points out that”“in international categorization, beef is defined as meat from either cattle or buffalo” and one is no less edible than the other.

Buffalo, including the Philippine water buffalo, also yields healthy meat because it is grass-fed and therefore organically grown, and has less cholesterol content. A study done by the Cancer Research and Radiation Biology Laboratory of the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute compared cattle, carabao, human, and processed milk and found Philippine carabao milk to be the most likely source of anti-cancer protein. Yet at present, only 12,000 head of carabaos are being used for milk in the Philippines, too small to make any dent in the local milk industry.

While Filipinos take their time getting over their biases against carabao meat, the Philippine Carabao Center is currently focusing on improving the native carabao’s genetic make, which has deteriorated over the years. PCC studies show that the Philippine carabao, overworked as a farm animal, has grown smaller and leaner. That’s also because farmers have been castrating bigger carabaos to prevent them from mating, during which time they become fierce and uncontrollable, and a liability to farming, leaving the smaller and thinner ones to breed.

The PCC wants to develop a bigger breed of Philippine carabaos, which is why these days the spacious PCC grounds in rustic Nueva Ecija are hosting a horde of riverine buffalos with curly horns (also known as murrah buffalos). The Indian imports are being readied for mating with the local swamp or water buffalos we know as the Philippine carabao. Four generations of crossbreeding, says Cruz, will eventually produce a local version that is bigger and fatter, the better to produce milk and meat, and not just to slave and starve away in the rice fields alongside the slaving and starving farmer.

In the nearer future, Cruz says, the industry will have to discard the term “carabeef” and all the negative connotations that come with it. “Tenderbuff” is how Australians are now calling their buffalo meat, and Cruz says Filipinos might just christen theirs “Nuevabeef,” since Nueva Ecija is where the Carabao Center is located, and where pilot areas for the growing of carabaos for milk and meat is being done.

In the meantime, there will be no other name for local canned corned beef, even if that in itself is actually a crossbreed of extenders and buffalo meat.