The Straits Times, 15 March 1994
The crowd roared as a white rooster stood over a red and black bird and killed it with a blow from a razor-sharp blade strapped to its leg.

The referee held both roosters up. The white cock pecked twice at the red chicken's lifeless body and up in the stands, money changed hands.

Cockfighting is the king of sports in the Philippine countryside, with tens of thousands of cockpits scattered across the nation's 7,100 islands doing brisk business every Sunday.

Said Mr Freddie Yulo, a sugar planter in the town of Binalbagan on the central island of Negros: "It's like a fiesta. It has to be the most popular sport in this country." It was his white rooster, Sunshine, which had just won.

It is the betting that draws the crowds and the bets are made through intricate hand signals in the pentagon-shaped cockpit arena.

In a four-cock derby, each participant fields four roosters. Winning a fight earns one point, while a draw gets half a point. Whoever has the most points at the end of the day takes the grand prize, which reached a record seven million pesos (S$427,000) in the central city of Cebu last year.

"The betting is tremendous," said Mr Felix Yusay, a hotel manager who breeds roosters part-time.

The arena erupts into a cacophony as the audience begins placing bets on the next fight. Odds can swing quickly and a favoured rooster can become the underdog easily.

Outside the pit, the smell of greasy grilled chicken competed with smells from an open-air toilet.

Roosters raised for kamikaze-like courage are imported from the United States and bred to be heavily built around the wings while remaining light on their feet.

"They put cheese, apples in their dishes," said Mr Yusay, adding some are fed better than the children of their owners.

The formula to produce winning roosters is simple, he said. "Good breed, good conditioning, good placing of knife. All that must come together. A lot of people believe winners breed winners."

In a tree-lined grove on the farm of Congressman Mariano Yulo and his three brothers in nearby Hinigaran town, tents stretched for nearly 1.6 km around which gamecocks stood at attention, like soldiers on inspection.

Mr Mariano Yulo is Mr Freddie Yulo's uncle.

The island of Negros, which takes pride in being the home of the country's sugar barons, is also the top breeding place for gamecocks. The top six breeders in the country all live on the island, said those involved in the fighting.

"This is the chicken centre of the country," Mr Mariano Yulo said, adding that each specially bred fighting cock can cost 3,000-5,000 pesos.

He said he was introduced to cockfighting by a younger brother and is now an avid fan.

"I have been in cockfighting for the past 25 years. This is excellent public exposure," he said of the farmers and businessmen around him in the arena.

He fidgeted during the first fight of his rooster in the derby in Binalbagan. The cock was named MMY after his initials.

It was wounded early in the battle before striking back in a flurry of feathers to kill the other rooster.

"I thought for a while I would lose. I put 2,000 pesos on my rooster," he said with a laugh.

One fan counted his remaining money carefully for the long afternoon of fights still ahead. "I bet until the money runs out," he said.

Copyright © 1996 Singapore Press Holdings. All Rights Reserved.