Despite ban and murders, online sabong thrives

Divers have spent more than a month searching a lake south of Manila for the bodies of men with links to the Philippines' bloody national obsession: cockfighting.

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They were murdered by rogue police, a government witness says, allegedly for rigging matches at the height of the country's pandemic-era craze for betting on live-streamed cockfights, or e-sabong.

The disappearances led then president Rodrigo Duterte to announce a total ban, but three years later, the e-sabong industry is still thriving.

On a recent Saturday in the Manila suburb Bulacan, cockfighters, or sabungeros, cracked grim jokes about their missing compatriots.

Inside the tarian, a crowded room where blades are attached to each bird's leg, sabungero Marcelo Parang insisted the murders had nothing to do with the legal cockfighting world.

"We don't know if (the men killed) did something bad," said the 60-year-old.

"We're not scared... In here, we're peaceful. In here, the matches are held fairly," he said of the deadly contests.

Outside, the crowd in the 800-seat arena roared as another bout ended with the losing rooster unceremoniously dumped in an empty paint bucket.

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