ORMOC GOLD : STORY OF BERNIE TACOY

Animal Scene (April 2006 Issue)
KARAMBOLA by Rolando S. Luzong

A TOUCH OF GOLD

Husband and wife Bernie & Belen Tacoy and their three children used to live inside a gamefowl barn. An attic of sort above their head composed of four slabs of plywood hanging from the nipa roof served as their bedroom. Bernie who earned his living then by being a cockfights handler and gaffer could hardly make ends meet. Until lady luck appeared to him and changed their lives to something they had never even dreamed of.


TWIST OF LUCK

Bernie Tacoy has been into gamefowl breeding since he was a teenager, but it was not until five years ago when he hit the jackpot, in the same manner that Boy Primalion did. Primalion, as every Filipino cocker knows, is the breeder of the Zamboanga Whites – a strain of fightingcocks that dominated the competition for almost eight years during the 80s up to the early 90s.

Five years ago, a guy gifted Bernie’s uncle with a gold-colored hen. However, his uncle not being fond of off-colored gamebirds was not interested and did not bother to breed the hen and left the poor bird in a corner pen.

Tacoy probably saw something in the golden hen that he asked his uncle’s permission for him to breed it. His uncle agreed, so Bernie got a broodcock to pair with the gold hen. From then on, what followed was a strain of gamefowl that Tacoy has never imagined he will have. It was like hitting a gold mine.

Out of the first batch of fourteen roosters he was able to produce from the gold hen, 13 won. From then on, there was no turning back for Bernie. Convinced that he had chanced upon the elusive nick or cut that other breeders spend years looking for, Tacoy did what was necessary to preserve the strain that he discovered.

The strain that Bernie developed is so versatile that he is able to cross it with other bloodlines he would prefer, but the gold color and its fighting qualities are always retained coupled with the qualities that he wanted from the line he chose to infuse.


One of the fast rising stars in Philippine cockfighting as a promisng gamefowl breeder comes from Ormoc City. His name is Bernie Tacoy and if he continuously able to sustain his success, he may yet write the same story that the great Boy Primalion did with his Zamboanga Whites for the City of Zamboanga.

Nowadays, the Ormoc Gold strain of rooster that Tacoy mustered has been making waves in Leyte and neighboring provinces. The Midas touch that the Ormoc Gold brought to the Tacoy family has practically changed their lives.

The barn wherein Bernie and his wife Belen used to live is now a two storey concrete house with furniture, appliances and air-conditioners; the farm which they use to rent is now their own, not to mention the sugar cane and pineapple plantations they were able to acquire thru their sales and winnings form the Ormoc Golds.

Tacoy admits that the Ormoc Gold is God’s blessing, because the nick that other breeders takes years to find, that is if they are lucky enough to find it, was handed to him in a silver…or a golden platter.

I saw how the Ormoc Golds spar and I bet they are bound to write their own epic in the years to come. Watch out!