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SCOTT GUGGENHEIM Cock or Bull: Cockfighting, Social Structure, and Political Commentary in the Philippines Direaly inspired by Geertz's essay on the Balinese cockfight, anthropologist Scott Guggenheim undertook an in-depth study ofthe cockfight in the Philippines to test some ofGeertz's hypotheses. Nowhere in the world is there more enthusiasmfor cockfights than in the Philippines. Guggenheim had originally planned to write his doctoraldissertation on cockfighting in thePhilippines, buthis dissertation committeedid not think the topic was "lofty enough"for such apurpose. For earlier considerations ofthe Filipino cockfight, see Grace Helen Bailey, "The CockpitandtheFilipino, "Overland Monthly 54(1909): 253-256; Fitzhugh Lee, ''Filipino's Favorite Sport, " Overland Monthly 77 (1920): 20-22; Alejandro R. Roces, Of Cocks and Kites (Manila: Regal Publishing Co., 1959); andAngelJ. Lansang, Cockfighting in the Philippines (Our Genuine National Sport) (Atlag, Malolos, Bulacan: Enrian Press, 1966). Guggenheim, who worksfor the WorldBank, is co-editorofPower and Protest in the Countryside: Studies ofRural Unrest in Asia, Europe, and Latin America (Durham: Duke University Press, 1982). Few travellers to the Philippines fail to notice the large, ramshackle, silverdomed cockpits that stud the lowland landscape. Every Sunday morning, in thousands ofvillages throughout the Philippines, these rickety, trembling constructions fill to the rafters and beyond with anxious, eager men convinced that this is the day when they will pick only winners and return home rich. Nor are cockpits confined to rural areas. Every city, ifit is really a city, sports at least two cockpits, and innumerable topadas, illegal fights held in a cockpit hastily improvised from a bamboo pole and a quiet alley, where any man with the price of admission can drown the urban clatter in the thrills of total victory-or the shame of total defeat. Despite the rather shamefaced efforts ofWestern-oriented progressives to Reprinted from Pilipinas:AJoumalofPhilippineStudies 3.1 (June, 1982): 1-35. I am indebted to my colleague ProfessorJimAnderson ofthe DepartmentofAnthropology, University ofCalifornia , Berkeley, for calling my attention to this important essay. 133 Scott Guggenheim pretend that cockfighting is a rapidly dying sport, limited largely to illiterate peasants and the lazarus layer ofthe working class, cockfighting remains the premier pastime in the Philippines. Nearly every male adult, aspiring adult, adolescent, and schoolchild has his own pet theory to explain which breed of roosterproduces the best fight, which chicken calisthenics are the most invigorating , and which diet is the most nourishing. In the countryside, copies ofAng Sabugero, the Filipino cockers magazine, are worth, if not quite as much as Penthouse, a great deal more than National Geographic, while in the cities its imported cousins, Gamecock and GritandSteel, can readily fetch halfa bottle of good Scotch. And even in the most remote corners of the country a little prodding extracts the most intricate, if not always the most accurate, details concerning the lives ofthe big-time cockers and their birds: Ricardo Silverio and his hired trainer from America, the Lacson's fabulous conditioning stalls, each ofwhich has stereo music piped to an air-conditioned cage, the Enrilelde Guzman partnership which commandeered an Air Force plane to fly to Georgia in order to pick up three hundred thoroughbred roosters for the upcoming season, and the amazing adventures of the invincible, insatiable, Tony "the Terrible" Trebol. Nevertheless, despite the inevitable fighting cock prominently staked outside ofevery small sari-sari store, left leg fastened to a lasso, right leg scratching through the sand for discarded grains of corn, despite the cock crow cacophony resounding through the villages at dawn, dusk, morning, noon and night, despite the hours and hours ... and more hours of intricate argument pleasurablyspenton cockpits, cockfights, and cocklore, despite the ubiquitousness of cockfighting themes in Philippine art, literature, and legend, careful studies ofcockfighting are nowhere to be found in the anthropological literature concerned with lowland Philippine society. Anthropologists working in other parts ofthe world have not been quite so remiss in their ethnographic duties. Most anthropologists who deal with cockfighting follow Clifford Geertz's (1972) pioneeringstudy ofBalinese cockfighting . While Geertz's analysis will be dealt with at greater length further on in this study, it is important to note here that Geertz argued for a purely interpretive approach to cockfights and by extension, to cultural analysis in general: What sets the cockfight apart from the ordinary course of life, lifts it from the realm of everyday practical affairs, and surrounds it with an aura of enlarged importance is not, as functionalist sociology would have it, that it reinforces status discriminations (such reinforcement is hardly necessary in a society where every...

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