SINGSING

Singsing is an upland rural barangay with a total land area of 863 hectares. It is bounded by Biasong on the north, Vito on the south, Hingatmonan on the east, and Cantuod on the west.

It is politically subdivided into seven (7) sitios, namely: Pitogo, Suron, Roadside, Dao, Riverside, Subida, and Pondok Singsing.

NAME-ORIGIN OF THE BARANGAY

“Singsing” is a Cebuano word which means ring. Yet according to the present barangay captain of Singsing, Tirso E. Dumdum Sr., the barangay was named as such not after a ring but because of the Spanish word “cien” which means “a hundred”. According to his conflicting stories which had been an oral tradition handed down to him from past generation, on the first account it was said that there was a certain Spaniard who came to the place after World War II and saw one hundred inhabitants of the place which he called “cien” meaning “a hundred”. On the second account, the first teniente del barrio by the name of Bodol Suico named the place as Sinsin after the one hundred people living in it in 1920. Later on, still according to him, the next generations of political leaders renamed it to Singsing.¹

Those accounts were conflicting in a sense that:

1. the Spaniards came before two world wars and probably established a government in Balamban in the early 1800’s;

2.  though one hundred in Spanish is “cien” yet it is neither repeated as “cien-cien” to create another word nor spelled as “cin-cin” or pronounced as “chin chin”;

3. World War II happened between 1939 and 1946 and in Cebu in particular it only started in 1942 after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941; and

4. The year 1920 is earlier than World War II.

Considering the fact that Singsing was not named after a ring and was established as a barrio under the American regime, it is more probable that the barangay was named after an American town of Sing Sing in New York which was renamed into Ossining in 1901 or after the Sing Sing Prison which was erected in 1828 by a quarry on Mt. Pleasant, near the Hudson River town of Sing Sing, which name comes from the American Indian phrase sin sinck which means “stone on stone”. That Sing Sing Prison with 800 cells was already popular to the western world since its establishment but was made more popular after the book of Lewis Lawes, who took charge of the said prison as warden since 1920 until 1942, entitled Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing was published in 1932. It became so popular that Sing Sing meant prison the way Kodak meant a camera or a photograph; Colgate, toothpaste; Pepsi, a soft drink; and Gillette, a razor blade.² It could also be very probable that the hundred people (referred to by the said oral tradition) found in barrio Singsing living near a freshwater spring were actually prisoners of war during World War II, hence the place was called Sing Sing which would mean at that time a prison.

On the other hand, considering the account that a Spaniard came to the barangay after World War II and found out a hundred people settling around a natural spring (which became the source of their drinking water) after World War II that miraculously sprout after the said people prayed to Saint Isidore the Laborer whom they made as their patron saint after that incident, it could also be probable that that Spaniard was actually an Italian who after being offered a glass of drinking water had toasted his glass and shouted “Cin cin!” which means “Cheers!” Cin cin in Italian is pronounced as chin chin.³

Yet if the said incident really took place during the Spanish regime, then it would be very probable that the early settlers discovered by the Spaniard who might be an Italian-born were actually early Malay migrants from a village in Jalin, Malacca which is called as Kampung Chinchin (Ring Village) which was likewise named after two versions of accounts that centered on a lost ring. “Chinchin” is a Malay word equivalent to Cebuano “singsing” which means “ring”.⁴ It is very probable that the Italian-born Spaniard after given a glass of water raised it and toasted for a drink and shouted “Cin cin.” The villagers might had thought that he was referring to the name of the place and also raised their drinking glasses and shouted “Chinchin” in return.

LIST OF POLITICAL LEADERS

Bodol Suico became the first teniente del barrio of the barangay c. 1920 or after World War II. After him followed Diosdada Bendebel, Eusebio Ambos, Conrada Mapa, and Rosalio Aguanta.

Tirso Dumdum Sr. became the Officer-In-Charge in 1992, won the election in 1994 and the succeeding two other elections thus serving the barangay for three terms, and after the first term of Windel Compasion in 2007 until 2010 he won again and is currently the barangay captain. Under the governance of Tirso Dumdum Sr., Singsing Elementary School had been established, water system was built, and electricity was distributed to every sitio.

SIGNIFICANT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS

Due to the training-seminars on livelihood enhancement program conducted by RAFI, the Farmers’ Association had improved on its farming ways especially on tilapia culture and plant production such as corn, rice, coconut, banana, mango, and vegetable. As a result of this positive development, lot of investors came in and started investing on piggery & poultry farms, dragon fruit & banana plantations, and on “thinking foods”.¹

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