global issue
Little Red Rooster COCKFIGHTING IN MANILA Life for many residents of Manila’s Tondo district is inextricably linked to the rubbish that surrounds them. Survival has never been easy according to local tricycle driver Fred, who like others, faces rising fuel and food prices, political indifference and poverty that ‘bounces off the walls’. Sounds relentlessly grim, but Fred is laughing; when he feels the need to ‘kill the system’ after another bad day, his catharsis has feathers on, as he vents his frustrations by cockfighting. How does a bloody national pastime fit with a country undergoing transition? Text and images by Veerle Devos Every day, José and his friends meet up in The Whale. It’s always crowded in the cantilever-roofed vessel; a big blue, peeling fish-out-of-water. Beached in a derelict area near the Pasig River in Tondo, this vast slum area is right next to what was once Manila’s biggest rubbish tip: Smokey Mountain – so named after the methane fumes its toxic bowels exhaled non-stop. Today, the mountain still gives off smoke plumes – but not like in the old days. ‘Smokey’ has officially been closed since 1995 and now the daily 4000 tons of rubbish that Manila’s 12 million residents produce is generously spread across the city in newer, smaller sites. In its ‘heyday’, most of Tondo’s inhabitants lived off their work on the refuse peaks – especially children, who by sifting through the dirt and debris added a little to their jobless parents’ means. A rubbish life laid open the district’s youth to a stinking set of variable dangers: unable to attend school and condemned to illiteracy, they were exposed to the deadly heat; ran the risk of being buried alive under the dump trucks’ loads; were overcome by deadly 92
Top: Illustrations for the Training Gamecock Beginner’s Manual by Jun Jamandores Above: World Slasher Cup 2007 DVD Facing page: José and his friends at the Whale
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global issue
Tondo slum besides the Pasig River
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fumes and prey to food poisoning and an array of infections. All this against a backdrop polluted by violent crime and drugs. Children worked up to 10 hours a day collecting PET bottles, for instance, earning them five pesos per kilogramme. Smokey Mountain became a scandal, and a notorious landmark. After its shut down, many of Tondo’s inhabitants remained in the wasted city that had emerged out of Smokey’s shadow. Half of the area still consists of the organically grown slum areas on squatted ground. But in the late 1990s the authorities also had some apartment buildings constructed – complete with rooms with a view: a still smouldering rubbish heap. The residents christened them ‘towers of misery’, not because of the crappy vista, but because there is no running water or electricity: its dwellers are really no better off than when they still lived in their self-built shacks. That the army is stationed close by is no mere geographical coincidence. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo shouldn’t count on too much sympathy in Tondo.
Cockfights are rooted in an ancient tradition, and have been persistently popular. Chances of this changing in the Philippines are slim, even when the country is experiencing an interesting transition. A different mood is coming over the land: after the colonisation by the Spanish and the Americans, the dictatorship of Marcos, and downfall of communists and socialists, the Philippines has now begun the search for its own national identity. ‘This land has a lot of promise, which means there are also many conflicts. We are a very young nation. Colonisation and dictatorship have destroyed so much: the nation, the language, a sense of pride... Artists have a role to play in the renewal: they give voice to unspoken thoughts and feelings,’ says visual artist Yason Banal, who after years of living in London has returned to Manila. ‘The authorities encourage Filipinos to move abroad, and as a result our country loses its best forces. Of course, life is less easy here than it is in London, but I find it my duty to take up my responsibility. Home is where the struggle is!’
HOME IS WHERE THE STRUGGLE IS
COUNTRY IN TRANSITION
José and his mates have a good reason to gather each day in The Whale: they keep a watch on their cocks, which are worth at least 2000 pesos apiece. The income of a day labourer in the nearby fishing harbour, where many work as hired hands, is 380 pesos per day. Every Sunday, they send their cocks into battle. There is shouting, gambling and lots of sweating until finally bets are settled. The battle is for life and death. That is certainly true for the roosters, 75 per cent of which die during their first fight. Most of them end up being eaten by their owners, with tears in their eyes – no wonder that Filipinos know so many recipes for rooster. But it is also a fight for survival for most gamblers, who, especially with the rise in cost of living, can’t afford to lose their rooster. Or indeed, can’t actually afford to gamble.
To outsiders it may well be a filthy and revolting, blood-spattered and cruel game, but to many Filipinos like José, Fred and their Tondo-based friends, the cockfight is a fascinating, aesthetically arousing duel, that exemplifies strength, speed and courage. Filipinos take courage and pride from the cockfights, drawing a parallel with the historical national struggle they fought for centuries against their successive occupiers, and with the present day national struggle that is waged every day, both by the millions of poor (almost 40 per cent of Filipinos live under the $2 a day poverty line) and by the ambitious cultural middleclass Yason Banal represents. ‘I’m the little red rooster. Keep everything in the farm yard upset in every way...’ #
‘Cockfights are legal in the Philippines,’ explains Antonio A. Hidalgo, former rooster farmer, politician and UN social developer. ‘That shouldn’t amaze anyone: after all, our politicians are in on it themselves. At election times, members of congress even let themselves be photographed and filmed in cockpits: it wins votes. When I was still breeding fighting cocks myself, I was frequently visited by campaigning politicians, asking me to put together a fighting team for them.’
Contemporary Manila: www.papayapost.blogspot.com, www.fellowesandpheasant.com/yason_banal.html, milfloresonline.blogspot.com, www.magnetgalleries.com
Clockwise: Towers of misery Remnants of Smokey Mountain Fred, the cheerful tricycle driver Fighting Cock for sale
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