S A B O N G

It is the brutal and bloody "sport" of two gamecocks pitted against each other,

predicated on one killing the other.

 Literally, a fight to the finish. But to the passionately addicted,

testosterone-fueled and adrenaline-raging sabong

aficionados, it is a fierce, bloody, and slashingly entertaining

fight-to-the-death that repeats itself 20 to 30 times

in a single day of cockfighting.

Sabong is one incredible window to the Filipino culture. And if the intrepid traveler should have the

stomach to venture into one, rather than the sanitized ambience of the big urban-suburban venues

 for the rich and burgis, go to a rural cockpit, and be absorbed by the noise, by the people, by the

thrilla-in-the-ruweda, by this slice of fringe Filipiniana.

It has been called a "national sport" – a designation that easily draws divisive argument.

But, it is a "national pastime" – a sphere of activity where class lines blur, a game enjoyed

with equal fervor by both the rich and the masa. The moneyed aficionados are usually

involved with expensive brood cocks of pedigree lineage bred for "fastest kill" and trained

for big money derby events.

For the rich, it is the "sport of kings" – of nerve and verve, macho and ego, and the

tens-of-thousands

of pesos or even millions won or lost with a shrug. And for the masa, a sport of dreamers,

pitting their

lowly-rural-bred against a burgis cock, betting their meager wages and rainy-day savings,

high on a

belief that on any day, with the luck of a parry-dodge-and-slash. . . and a prayer. . .

his game cock can win.

Superstitions

 while providing comic color to cockfighting, are taken seriously by many rural sabong devotees

(1) The arrival of a female visitor on the day of the cockfight is inauspicious.
(2) Do not sweep the floor of the house on sabong day.
(3) Avoid cockfighting on Fridays.
(4) Avoid going to the cockfight with a hole in one of the pants' pockets.
(5) Don't look back when walking to the cockpit arena.
(6) Bet on the "mayahin" and white cocks on days with moonlit nights.
(7) It is an unlucky day if one runs into a funeral procession on the way to the cockfight.
(8) Shaving is avoided on sabong day for fear it might cause the game cock's blade to break.
(9) Avoid having sex the night before.

Hand Signs

Because of distance and the deafening noise, kristos rely on hand signs to communicate their bets with other kristos.

Knowing the arithmetic language of fingers facilitates communication with your kristo and adds a fascinating facet to

 the sabong experience. (1) Upward fingers: In small arenas, especially in the rural and boondock hack fights where

small bets are not uncommon, each finger signals 10 pesos; five fingers, 50 pesos. In big cockpits or derby events, an

upward finger could mean 10,000 or 100,000 pesos. (2) Downward fingers: Each finger is equivalent to a 1000-peso bet;

7 fingers, 7,000 pesos. Caution is given in pointing the fingers downward twice, as this will be interpreted as a 14,000-peso

bet. (3) Sideward fingers: Each sideward finger is equivalent to 100 pesos. In the figure, the four fingers denote 400 pesos.