What is Mana?
Mana is Masang Nagmamanok, an organization of common sabungeros all throughout the Philippine Islands.
It was loosely formed a few months ago on a suggestion by a reader of Llamado Tayo, “ The column Llamado Tayo, is read daily by over a hundred thousand cocking afficionados, mostly in Metro Manila. It is a daily feature of the tabloid “Tumbok” which is owned by the Philippine Daily Inquirer group of publications.
The reader who suggested that readers of the column formed themselves into an orgnization was Boying Santiago, of Camarines Sur,a member of the Bicol Gamefowl Breeders Association (BIGBA).
In July 2008 MANA had a membership of around 2,500, when its primemovers started a program to recruit as many as 100,000 members in a year’s time.
Now, less than two months later MANA has a membership of over 7,000 and is on track to double it every two months, hitting the targetted 100,000 members in less than a year.
Members of MANA call each other kamana.
The objectives of MANA are:
1. To provide welfare to the hundreds of thousands of common sabungeros in the Philiipines and workers in the gamefowl industry;
2. To fight for the preservation of sabong as a sport, livelihood, and heritage of the Pilipino culture.
3. To cooperate with other pillars of the gamefowl industry to the benefit of sabong and the sabungeros.
MANA vows to be in the forefront of the fight for the preservation of sabong. Animal rights group now threatened to do in the
MANA prime movers are banking on show of force by numbers. They reckon politicians will think twice before passing a law against sabong when they will be face with the possibility of losing too many votes.
“Actually it’s not so much of showing our numbers, as every body knows we are so many, as showing unity,” they said.
Among the primemovers of MANA are Boying Santiago; councilor Jessie Abonite of
Dan Baltazar is the group’s main spokesperson, while Steve del Mar is the head of its public relations bureau and main author of this blog.
.—Sep 14, 2008 Gamefowl Research, Information & Training (GRIT) News & Features