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4 COCK DERBY

A brief dip into the Filipino cockfighting scene, in (mostly) black and white.

By Tommy Nagle

April 2^nd, 2019

Cockfighting is huge in the Philippines.

Virtually their national sport (along with basketball) Sabong provides thousands of jobs and is a multi-million dollar industry.

I can’t say I support the maiming of animals for sport, but you can’t deny that it’s a fascinating world.

When in Rome… (or Manila)

At 1pm, in the northern district of Santa Cruz, I hop into a jeepney along with a few other curious tourists outside a branch of Jollibee, a Filipino burger chain.

As always, it's a hot day in Manila and the heat is oppressive inside the van, despite its having no doors and an open rear entrance.

Christian rock music crackles out of the jeepney's speakers, competing with the myriad of street sounds: traffic, hawkers, school kids rehearsing dance routines.

The trip I took was run by Smokey Tours, a locally run company that provides an insight into how the other half lives, through excursions that reveal the parts of Manila that the travel brochures don't show you.

Some might call it muckraking, but through their trips, Smokey Tours raises both awareness and money by putting funds back into the underprivileged communities to which they introduce visitors.

As we near the venue, the rich, fatty smell of lechón, the Spanish roasted pig dish, wafts into the street, accompanied by the smokey scent of charcoal.

Flowery, intricate folds of chicharon bulaklak, or crispy pig's intestine, sit on metal trays waiting to be purchased, alongside individually wrapped sweets.

Chicks that can't be more than a few days old are also for sale nearby.

Contained within stacked plastic trays, some of the wretched things have been dip-dyed, neon pink, blue or yellow, seemingly to make them more appealing.

Who knows their fate. Perhaps for some it's within this very cockpit.

Judging by the clientele as we enter the building, cockfighting is almost exclusively a male pursuit.

Near the entrance, a pair of women sing tuneless karaoke as they wait for their partners. A few others wander about the arena selling snacks from baskets.

It seems none is here for entertainment.

To the side of the entrance door, a plastic bin sits beneath a sign requesting that visitors "unloading of gun here".

The bin is empty.

Owners and trainers mill about in a fenced off holding area of sorts, clutching their precious charges as they wait for their fights to be announced.

You wonder if these chickens know what's coming, and if they'd stick around if they did.

Perhaps I'm naive, but I thought the birds just fought each other "bare handed", if you will. Maybe some of them get their talons sharpened beforehand.

But no, here in the Philippines they have blades that are up to two and a half inches long strapped to their legs, which makes the fights even more vicious.

Blade men are responsible for meticulously tying these razor-sharp knives, housed in elegant boxes like some depraved version of the family silverware, around the left legs of the roosters.

If both owners agree, knives can be tied to the right leg or even both legs, but either way, if the bird they armed doesn’t win, then they don't get paid.

In between bouts, we take our seats in the arena, atop wooden benches, under fluorescent lights, amid cigarette smoke and surrounded by noise and activity.

Owners participating in the upcoming contest stand on either side of the ring, each riling up their combatant by holding its body and forcing it head-to-head with a rooster that's not slated to fight.

The handlers pull them apart as they go at each other, preventing injury before the big match.

A bald man who looks to be in his fifties, wearing a vest and sporting a satchel presumably full of cigarettes and betting money, taps me on the shoulder and introduces himself as ‘The Japanese’.

He's the Godfather of the cockpit. Seemingly everyone knows him, which he proves by flagging down several bookies and other punters and asking them what his name is. Why 'The Japanese' you may ask?

Years ago, some wit decided he looked vaguely Japanese. The name stuck.

As he explains a little about the sport, bookies swarm the bottom of the cockpit, gesturing with rapid hand signals and shouting to anyone who will listen.

Rolls of wrinkled banknotes are tossed around the arena, thousands of pesos lobbed around like tennis balls.

A bookie takes a moment pre-fight to explain how difficult his job can be.

He keeps track of the amounts of money wagered and of course the odds, for multiple bets, as well as the faces and outfits of the people who are betting.

All in his head.

Why their faces?

Because more than once he’s had a group of guys club together for a bet.

If they're successful, he's thrown the winnings to one of them, only to have the recipient run away, leaving the rest of the syndicate empty-handed.

So it's useful to be able to tell the pitchfork-wielding mob who's got their money.

Sitting behind us, a man with a misty eye that a Bond villain would be proud of keeps interjecting and giving us betting tips, his breath looming over my shoulder like he's wafting a turpentine-soaked rag next to my ear.

'The Japanese' asks me how much I'm going to bet on the upcoming bout. When I said I wasn’t planning on betting at all, he's incredulous.

“No betting, No excitement!”

he exclaims in a thick Filipino accent, and lights up another cigarette.

The wagers placed, the atmosphere quietens down somewhat as the contenders' knives are unsheathed and they're placed carefully in the ring.

The birds peck around for a moment or two, seemingly oblivious to one another.

Then one crows loudly, just as if it were chiming in the dawn, and the other turns to face it.

Suddenly, there's a blur of movement and a burst of feathers.

The lighter feathered bird staggers slightly and spins away.

It turns again toward its attacker, blood spurting from its chest, but undeterred.

They face off and tussle a couple more times, before the white one stumbles again and doesn't get back up.

The sentenciador, or referee, cautiously approaches from the corner of the ring, wary of the blades still attached to the bird's legs which are still very capable of causing him serious injury.

He grabs both roosters by the scruffs of their necks and places them head to head to see if they're willing to fight any further.

The darker rooster pecks at his opposition, who's had enough, and turns away, defeated.

The winner is declared, and as the ring is cleaned of blood and feathers, both roosters are taken to the surgeons, who will patch them up as best they can.

The whole fight lasts eighteen and a half seconds.

The surgeon's area isn’t particularly salubrious.

In the space under the tiered seating of the arena, two men in blood-stained t-shirts sit on small stools surrounded by detritus, awaiting their patients.

They charge 200 Pesos, about $4 USD or £3 GBP, to stitch up the chickens.

As with the blade men, if the rooster they work on loses, they don't get paid. But in their case it means if the rooster dies in their lap, then they don't charge.

At the same time, both surgeons have a bird placed on the pleather mat covering their laps, the participants of the most recent bout.

They get to work immediately, turning the birds over, searching for injuries, plucking away feathers to reveal deep gashes on chests and legs.

The birds lie there calmly, as if they're not bothered by the gaping wounds, but more likely dazed by the extreme pain.

One rooster is (un)fortunate, and will recover, perhaps to fight another day.

The other lies in the surgeon's lap, life draining out of it, the surgeon crying out "critical!" as he fingers a deep laceration near the birds's thigh.

It dies in his arms.

A stoic expression on his face, the rooster's owner unties the bright ribbon holding the blade, then lifts the dead bird up by its legs and carries it away.