Knife Fights in Manila

The rain doesn’t appear to be letting up anytime soon, so I’m either going to have to camp out at this Lechon stall for a second lunch, or neglect my principles and cut across the street.

It’s funny, I had the arena pinned on my maps to get here and told my girlfriend that I wanted to simply go on a walk by myself so that she wouldn’t be able to talk me out of it, but at this moment, in my silly head, I pretended like this moral dilemma had arisen because of the sudden rain storm versus any sort of pre-meditation.

Behind me the stall owner asks if I’d like to sit down. I politely decline but acknowledge that I’ll soon be getting out of their canopy where I’d been taking refuge. I spot an ominous looking entryway where working class men make their way in as a naive looking elder lady checks them at the gate. I finally make up my mind and jog across the street, dodging puddles and the raucous Manila traffic along the way.

When I get to the entrance my presence catches the attention of a few men smoking cigarettes outside. Their chuckles reaffirm the doubts I had at the Lechon stand. The old lady gives me confidence when she doesn’t seem to notice me at all beyond insisting that I buy a mask at the concession stand. “Must buy mask! 200 pesos. Over there!” It felt strange that the last covid restriction I’ve had to abide by would be in a place like this.

I go to concessions to buy my mask, despite no-one in the arena seeming to wear one. The gentleman at the stand is welcoming and calms my nerves a bit more. “You come to fight before?” He asks.

“No, first time,” I respond.

He hands me the mask. “Enjoy!” He says with a mischievous grin.

I smile back, but I’m now flooded with guilt as I turn toward the stands. I maneuver through lines of people waiting to buy fried donuts and meat skewers at the concessions. Its a familiar scene, like a small town high school basketball game, but I know what the show is so it all feels strange. Something like this, would never be celebrated back home, and of course very illegal.

My apprehension grows because I unknowingly walk by what you might consider the locker rooms for the fighters getting ready for the coming bouts, doing so in plain sight of passing spectators. They look unfazed, but more so in a oblivious way. Do they know what they’re about to endure? The damage they’re expected to inflict? It would seem so, though short lived and depressing — they’ve trained their whole lives for this. A life that was never their own to begin with. But admittedly, a life more noble than any of their peers.

Their trainers, or more accurately put, their masters, prepare them by strapping their primary weapon to their right ankle. It’s a shaking revelation, and the more they sharpen the blade the more I’m reaffirmed that this fight, was going to be to the death.

I work my way up some stairs so I can watch from one of the back rows. I was just as interested in watching the spectators as much as the battle.

The first thing I noticed was a jumbo-tron in the middle, with the screen displaying two colored sides — one in red and the other blue, each with a dollar amount. The amount ticked on each side and I could quickly correlate the fluctuating ticker to a frantic display of activity across the stands. Men pushing their way to make their bets at small kiosks — notably all operated by women — each acting as an auctioneer for their small subsection of the arena. I put together that the red and blue represent the two fighters, red being the challenger and blue being the favorite. The fighters meanwhile pace the center stage, high-stepping across the dirt while a timer counts down the minutes till the next bout on the jumbo-tron. It’s almost like a pre-fight show I presume, for the onlookers to observe the fighters: their body language, their stature, or perhaps the determination in their eyes. However, the more I look around, the more I’m certain that these men aren’t enthusiasts, their simply gamblers, and they make their bets with as much rational as a roulette player in a Vegas casino.

One minute remains on the clock and the last wagers trickle in. The referee instructs the masters to make their way out of the ring. I pull out my phone but decide against taking a video for the first fight. I might not want any proof I was here to begin with, I think to myself.

The clock strikes zero, and the crowd is finally settled. The referee guides the fighters by the neck and faces them towards each other to take one last look before they begin the battle. I brace myself, the fighters are released and instructed to commence, but they don’t immediately go after each other. Instead, they pace once again, at one point even turning their backs on each other. The crowd eggs them on as they inch closer, deciding when to strike, and then one does! The favorite jumps in the air seemingly twice the height of his body and attacks from above leading with the sharp blade.

The fight is officially on.

I lean forward in my seat, but the dustball around them make it impossible to see exactly how the damage is being inflicted. Once the dust settles I can see that the challenger is impaired, and he can’t even get off the ground. The ref comes back to lift up the injured fighter as the bout can’t be called until a pulse is no longer detected. The ref stands the challenger on it’s crippled legs and the challenger can only hold a stance because his limbs are stacked vertically on his joints. The favorite then hastly re-approaches the challenger, to which the challenger can only fall back to the ground before another dust storm leaves him motionless in the dirt. The attacker backs away from fallen challenger and the referee come over to examine him by lifting his neck from the dirt and releasing his head as it falls back down lifelessly. The winner is confirmed. The crowd cheers, but in a underwhelming way, like a made extra point for a football game. The disgraced fighter is lifted off the dirt and the clock has already restarted for next round of bets to begin.

The whole thing couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds.

I’ve officially seen my first cockfight.

The crowd immediately tallied their bets and their attention was no longer drawn to the stage. The disgraced rooster was picked up off the floor like roadkill and the scattered feathers remained as the last remnants of his existence.

I proceeded to watch this process repeat itself a few more times and the more times it happened, the more I could understand why the first battle felt a bit trite and ubiquitous. The roosters come out, the bet’s go in, the roosters are pitted against each other, and one remains a moment later. Rinse and repeat.

On the way out I saw where they also serviced the roosters after their bouts, being repaired by “medics”, so they can return to fight another day. I was also made aware that the losing roosters are then gifted to the owner of the winners, and often cooked up by their families. Funny to think that this part of their existence might be the least cruel.

Cockfighting is almost as much a fixture in Filipino culture as basketball, and if you don’t believe me walk around any city in the Philippines and count how many fighters you see tied up to fences and street poles. Everyone seems to have a rooster in training, in hopes of momentary glory — whether the rooster knows it or not.

Its hard to get all “animal activist-like” when it comes to chickens. Anyone that does so in a sanctimonious way, whether they eat meat or not, are likely hypocrites. Let them have their cock fights in my opinion, though I probably wont be back anytime soon. I’m not much of a gambler. Nevertheless, I’ll never forget the experience.

Manila…such a chaotic, strange, and unnerving city.

I’m glad a came.