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Sabong(Cockfight) : The Sport of Kings
Game fowl industry experts answer the million-dollar question: Is there a sure-fire way to breed a champion?
It is believed to be the world’s oldest spectator sport, dating back about 6000 years in Persia (now Iran). Great men in history have been known to participate in it. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson were all cockers. Alexander the Great staged cockfights on the night before a battle to impress courage and valor upon his soldiers.
Today, this sport has been outlawed in most European countries as well as the United States. But breeders of noble feathered gladiators of this sport cannot be dispirited. In fact, they come in droves, even to migrate, in a country that still holds this ancient sport in reverence as history itself- the Philippines.
Thus raising the Philippine Gamefowl Industry into its pedestal as a Php10 Billion industry, generating employment from the caretakers in breeder farms to handlers in derbies to inventors to office employees in multinational companies.
Currently there are two national associations of breeders, the National Federation of Gamefowl Breeders (NFGB) and the United Gamefowl Breeders Association (UGBA). These national associations compose of regional associations all over the country.
Total breeders in the Philippines today is estimated at 6 million. It prods some people to say, the best place to launch any campaign is at the cockpit, where you can reach 6 million heads of families in one congregation.