Malatapay, Negros Oriental, Philippines
This morning Joseph and I finally took a jeepney to Malatapay, a large regional market held every Wednesday in a town about 30 kilometers south of Dumaguete. We wandered the stalls that were selling everything from the usual vegetables and fish to machetes and farm tools. A couple vendors had counters heaped with mysteriously large dried brown leaves: tobacco, we were told. In the livestock section, we were stepping through cattle and carabao shit to check out the young bulls and heifers being auctioned. Pigs and goats were carted in the sidecar of (and on top of!) tricycles. At one point we came across a bunch of men standing around with roosters in their arms. Joseph made for the throng of men and called after me. A cockfight.
Cockfighting, one rooster fighting another, is one of the biggest forms of entertainment in the Philippines and it's been this way for centuries. Cities and towns have arenas where handlers and the requisite masses gather once or twice a week to see and bet on one rooster fighting another to the death.
Roosters in most cockfights in the Philippines are equipped with extra razor-sharp blades strapped to their legs—an extra talon, which depending on how you look at it, either speeds or at least intensifies the match.
It’s not at all uncommon, even in urban areas, to see chickens in people’s yards. We wake to the noise of the neighborhood roosters. And in my daily wanderings in the past months, I’d noticed many roosters that were tethered by a rope and stake or kept under a wire cage in yards. Joseph pointed out these were the fighting roosters, the ropes or cages were required to keep the roosters from attacking and killing each other.
But we hadn’t been to the cockfights. And, honestly, I wasn’t really too insistent about going. Cockfighting is one Filipino activity that sort of pushes the boundaries of my cultural interests, so to speak. It’s always sounded rather gruesome to me. Just as, in the year 2015, we don't go to large public arenas to watch one lion kill another, I don't have a lot of interest in seeing one rooster kill another. And it's not even the killing itself that I find disturbing. I get that in nature animals kill other animals. I grew up on a farm and have no problem watching animals being killed and butchered for human consumption. But there's just something lurid about humans assembling to watch roosters fight until one kills the other. As a form of entertainment.
Roosters in most cockfights in the Philippines are equipped with extra razor-sharp blades strapped to their legs—an extra talon, which depending on how you look at it, either speeds or at least intensifies the match.
It’s not at all uncommon, even in urban areas, to see chickens in people’s yards. We wake to the noise of the neighborhood roosters. And in my daily wanderings in the past months, I’d noticed many roosters that were tethered by a rope and stake or kept under a wire cage in yards. Joseph pointed out these were the fighting roosters, the ropes or cages were required to keep the roosters from attacking and killing each other.
But we hadn’t been to the cockfights. And, honestly, I wasn’t really too insistent about going. Cockfighting is one Filipino activity that sort of pushes the boundaries of my cultural interests, so to speak. It’s always sounded rather gruesome to me. Just as, in the year 2015, we don't go to large public arenas to watch one lion kill another, I don't have a lot of interest in seeing one rooster kill another. And it's not even the killing itself that I find disturbing. I get that in nature animals kill other animals. I grew up on a farm and have no problem watching animals being killed and butchered for human consumption. But there's just something lurid about humans assembling to watch roosters fight until one kills the other. As a form of entertainment.
This morning as Joseph was sidling into the circle of men to get a glimpse of the fighting roosters, I was hanging back, hesitant. Through the bars of men’s legs, I could see the handlers put down two roosters: beak to beak, a sudden flutter of feathers as they attacked each other. A knot was growing in my stomach.
Eventually, the handlers, having kept the leg ropes on the roosters, pulled the fighters back safely into their arms. This was only practice, a cockfight scrimmage. These roosters weren’t even suited up for game day with their extra razor talons.
In Manila a couple weeks ago, we were walking in the neighborhood where Joseph grew up. We came upon what we quickly realized had been a makeshift cockfight ring. We saw two men seated, one stitching the neck or wing of a bloody rooster. “He won!” the stitcher told me, smiling proudly over his wounded warrior. The loser, Joseph pointed out, was butchered and eaten like most of chicken-dom.
Eventually, the handlers, having kept the leg ropes on the roosters, pulled the fighters back safely into their arms. This was only practice, a cockfight scrimmage. These roosters weren’t even suited up for game day with their extra razor talons.
In Manila a couple weeks ago, we were walking in the neighborhood where Joseph grew up. We came upon what we quickly realized had been a makeshift cockfight ring. We saw two men seated, one stitching the neck or wing of a bloody rooster. “He won!” the stitcher told me, smiling proudly over his wounded warrior. The loser, Joseph pointed out, was butchered and eaten like most of chicken-dom.
I'm still not sure if we'll make it to a cockfight—our time in the Philippines is running out. I know I should go, just to witness this most Filipino of Filipino activities. But since the spectacle thrives on its appeal to the masses, I though I may as well implicate you, my readers, if I do go. If chicken blood and one rooster killing another is what you want to see, I'll go (and tell you about it!) If the majority think I shouldn't go, I won't.
It's up to you: should I witness a cockfight before I leave the Philippines? The masses will decide.
It's up to you: should I witness a cockfight before I leave the Philippines? The masses will decide.