www.cockfightlive.com

Bandera (December 27. 2006)
BATTLE ROYALE by Rolando S. Luzong

www.cockfightlive.com?


There’s a new kid on the block and while he strives hard to hide his ugly head, one can smell his arid stench even from miles away.

I was opting at first not to do this article, lest I make the mistake of promoting them, but things has to be said and it has been my self-assigned tasks of exposing and revealing anything that will put sabong in a bad light and would put the existence of cockfighting in danger later on.

The new website www.cockfightlive.com, is projecting itself to be in the mission of helping popularize Philippine cockfighting, but the paintings on the wall is revealing something very much different.

I will be listing down my own observations and guesses as a cockfights columnist and promised to accommodate reactions by those concerned later on. However, it would help a lot if these questions are answered :

1) As what its name connotes, www.cockfightlive .com will be showing Philippine cockfighting live via the internet?

· It has always been my position that showing Philippine cockfighting live in the internet will not do us good. Imagine how parents of other countries will react once their children are able to watch cockfighting in their computers.

· How do you think would the Humane Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals – a very powerful, rich and influential worldwide organization, will respond to what they think is introduction or reintroduction of something that they have already eradicated in their own countries.

· HSPCA and other animal rights groups are powerful enough to influence and dictate on their respective governments to exert pressure or implement sanctions on other governments, specially on a third world country like ours.

· Rather than webcasting our cockfighting, it will be much better to promote the sport as a tourist attraction and make the foreigners discover and enjoy sabong here.


2) The Bakbakan coverage?

· During the last Bakbakan derby, www.cockfightlive.com put in two entries and paid a hefty sum of money for an exclusive coverage of the Bakbakan. Why?

· They made used of about twenty personnel and seems very well funded.

· Apparently, the said entity are on a public relation binge to get into the sport and create a good impression of sort. For what reason?

· Now they are selling DVD tapes of the Bakbakan coverage. Is it their business to sell video discs? Maybe not, because their name is www.cockfightlive.com, which means that they are on the live webcast business and not on selling recorded fights. Secondly, if they only intend to sell copies of the Bakabakan derby, it seemed to be against good business sense to be spending so much for a video tape selling venture.


3) What’s the real deal?

· Like www.sabongworld.com that a Morinobu Taniguchi started last year, but did not took off, www.cockfightlive.com is also reportedly, a Japanese-financed entity.

· Like www.sabongworld.com which real business plan was to put up internet gambling based on live webcast of derbies held in major cockpits in the Philippines, www.cockfightlive.com has all signs of turning into a gambling website later on - a scheme that will spell the doom of Philippine sabong.

· While, the protectors of Philippine cockfighting - those who love the sport and the nationalist sabungeros do everything to promote sabong as a sport and industry, while, carefully hiding and toning down its gambling component, websites like www.sabongworld.com and now www.cockfightlive.com will be making use of sabong as a tool for internet gaming.

We have had Japanese cockers like Ryoichi Saito & Hajime Ogawa before. Nowadays, we have Noriaki Morita. They are cockers in every sense of the word and deserve to be amongst us. However, Morinobu Taniguchi of www.sabongworld.com and the Japanese that are supposedly behind www.cockfightlive.com have a completely different agenda in mind. Let’s keep our eyes, ears and mind open and be on guard of their real intensions.

FLASH REPORT!!!

· A Fil-American who’s in the business of gamefowl brokering and shipping has been arrested in the US allegedly for tax evasion and non-declaration of other income.

· Shippers of gamefowl in the United States are now finding it hard to ship, because members of the HSPCA actually enters airports and cargo offices in the US once they find out that gamefowls are about to be shipped out. Their contention is that the permits to import are issued by the Philippine government, but no permit to export was awarded by the US government.

GREETINGS to Alvin Suarez & Jean Montalban; Nico & Ambet of Epoy’s Meat Shop; Boy Rufa; Nelio Labriaga; Jongjong & Me-ann Mejia and all the members of the De la Costa Housing Tricycle Operators & Drivers Association.