Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
COCKFIGHTING AND THE FILIPINO
Cockfighting
has a long history in the Philippines. National hero José Rizal, martyred by the
Spanish in 1896, once pointed out that the average Filipino loves his rooster more than he
does his children.
Contrary to received wisdom, cockfighting was not introduced to the country by the
Spanish. When conquistadors landed in Palawan shortly after the death of Magellan, they
discovered native men already breeding domestic roosters to fight, putting them in shared
cages and letting them scrap over small amounts of food.
Social scientists say cockfighting is popular in the Philippines because it reflects the national
passion for brevity or a quick payoff, the trait of
ningas cogon
(
cogon
being a wild grass that
burns ferociously and quickly). Part of the appeal is the
prize money
. For a P200 entrance fee,
a struggling farmer from the backwoods could finish the day with P300,000 in his pocket, all
thanks to a trusty rooster he has groomed and trained assiduously for months.
In addition to Manny Pacquiao, at the time of
writing the Philippines could boast two other world
champions: Nonito “The Filipino Flash” Donaire and
Donnie “Ahas” Nietes.
peck and jab each other to death as onlookers
make bets on the outcome. The fight begins when
the two roosters are presented to each other in
the pit. Both have a razor-sharp curved blade three
inches long strapped to their leg. The fight is over in
a burst of feathers in no more than a few minutes,
when one rooster is too bloodied and wounded,
or simply too dead, to peck back at its opponent
when provoked. To make the evening last, most
major cockfights feature seven contests. Anyone
who likes animals should definitely stay well away.
If you do attend a cockfight (
sabong
in Tagalog),
you'll be experiencing Filipino culture at its rawest -
at the very least it might make you think again
about how much “American influence” dominates
the culture. It's best to start at one of the major
cockpits in Manila (see box, p.98), or ask your hotel
for the nearest place to see one. Entrance fees are
minimal, but you'll rarely see women attending -
the cockpit is the exclusive preserve of men, who
see it as an egalitarian refuge from the world's woes,
a place where class differences are temporarily put
to one side and everyone wears flip-flops and vests.
In Manila foreign females should be OK at the main
venues, but in the provinces you'll probably feel
more comfortable with a male companion.
Pool
Every town and city in the country has some sort of
billiards hall
(for
pool
, not traditional English
billiards), even if it's just a few old tables on the
pavement where games are played by kerosene
lamps between locals for the price of a few San
Miguels. The sport has always been popular - it's
cheap and reasonably accessible - but has boomed
over the past decade because of the success of
Efren Reyes and Francisco Bustamante. Reyes,
sometimes called “The Magician”, is one of the pool
world's great characters; a diminutive fellow with
a toothy grin, he picked up the nickname “Bata”
(“The Kid”) while helping out in his uncle's pool
halls in Manila as a child. He was born in Pampanga
province, to the north of Manila, and can still
occasionally be found on a Friday or Saturday night
shooting pool in his hometown bars around Clark,
good-naturedly scalping unsuspecting tourists'
drinks. In 2006, Reyes and Francisco “Django”
Bustamante represented their country as Team
Philippines and won the inaugural
World Cup of
Pool
by defeating Team USA - a victory of major
significance for a country with few global sporting
heroes. They repeated the feat in 2009, on home
turf. Countrymen Dennis Orcollo and Roberto
Gomez were runners up (to China) in 2010.
Culture and
etiquette
For many travellers the Philippines
seems less immediately “exotic” than
other countries in Asia. English is
spoken almost everywhere, people wear
Western clothes and visit malls and the
main religion is Catholicism. Combined
with the approachability and sunny
Cockfighting
Cockfighting is the Filipino passion few Westerners
get to see - or understand, for obvious reasons. It's
a brutal blood sport where fighting cocks literally
