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FILIPINO
COWBOYS RIDE AND ROPE LIKE TEXANS
In the Philippines, men and women compete in an annual rodeo that celebrates a thriving cowboy culture with roots in the Spanish and American colonial eras.
Real American cowboy music echoes across a fairground as ranch hands struggle with cattle inside a dirt-floored stadium. The scene would be typical in Texas, but this rodeo is happening about 8,000 miles away, on an island in the Philippines.
Nearly every spring for 30 years, the best cowboys in the country have traveled to the island province of Masbate to test their skills at the Rodeo Festival in Masbate City. It is both a sporting event and a celebration of Philippine cowboy lifestyle.
“Where there are cattle, there will be a rodeo,” said Leo Gozum, a livestock farmer who directs the festival’s rodeo events. “It is not necessarily only in America.”
In the juego de toro, or bull game, people run with about 30 cattle through blocked-off streets, just as those in Spain run with bulls through Pamplona. The rules say you can keep any cow you catch — as long as you do it with your bare hands.
Some travel to the Masbate rodeo by boat, from other Philippine islands. Others work on the cattle ranches in Masbate Province, one of the country’s poorest regions.
The contestants, mostly farmers and students, compete for USD$23,000 in prize money, an average of USD$250 for each of the 90 or so winners.
Many of the skills on display have been practiced in the Philippines for centuries — long before the country won its independence from Spain in 1898.
One of the toughest events is the carambola, in which teams try to restrain an unruly cow in the rodeo ring. By hand, of course!
Manuel Sese, a retired judge who owns a ranch outside Masbate City, says Masbate’s tough lifestyle and hilly grasslands have helped produce hundreds of capable cowboys, some of whom work on his ranch.
One of them is Justin Bareng. Mr. Bareng said he rises at 4 am most days to feed his mare before saddling up. With the USD$100 he earns each month, he feeds his six children and sends his 19-year-old brother to high school.
The rodeo’s prize money is an incentive for the contestants, who sometimes call themselves “koboys,” the Filipino slang for “cowboy.”
But money is not their only reason for competing.
“Rodeo, for me, is a game of strength, and only for the brave,” says Kenneth Ramonar, a businessman and preacher who captains a rodeo team from the southern province of Mindanao.
Mr. Ramonar says he used to be a drunk and a drug addict. Then, he started a family, found the Bible and came up with a new use for his ranching skills: rodeoing. Now he runs a ranch resort where tourists can learn the way of “koboys” during their visit.
The Masbate City rodeo arena sits next to a fairground where fans mill around in denim pants, flannel shirts, and cowboy hats.
Vendors barbecue beef and pork over smoky grills under colorful tents. There is line dancing, too.
But, when the rodeo begins, cowboys get busy feeding cows, choosing the right ones for specific events, and herding them in and out of the ring.
The rodeo includes seven cattle-centered events, including bull riding, lassoing, and “casting down,” in which teams of four, with ropes, try to wrestle to the ground a really big animal.
The event organizers are experienced farmers, veterinarians, and experts in the handling of animals, says Mr. Gozum, the events director.
He said the key to a good competition was selecting animals that were lively enough to make the action interesting but not too dangerous.
At this year’s event, more than 300 contestants competed either as professionals or students. Some students are “cowgirls.”
“A woman can do what a man can do,” said Rosario Bulan. She was part of a team that won first place in two all-women carambola events.
The Masbate rodeo is the best-known of several such events in the Philippines.
The elements for rodeo have existed in the Philippines for centuries. Landowners established cattle ranches around Manila by the 17th century, said Greg Bankoff, a historian in the city. By the 19th century, horses were being used across the country to transport sugar, coconuts, and other raw materials.
In Masbate, cowboys drove cattle into the stockyards around the port. From there, the cows were exported to ranches around the country.
Mr. Gozum said that, while Philippine cowboy culture is rooted in Spanish traditions and was heavily influenced by American ranching techniques, it now reflects the Filipino virtues of patience and perseverance.
The seventh of nine children, Mr. Bareng moved to Manila when he was eight to live with two older siblings after his mother died.
But, city life bored him, and at 18, he came home to Masbate to herd cattle.
For him, the only unusual aspects of competing in a rodeo ring are the spectators and the cash prizes. “After all,” he says, “rodeo really is what we do here every day.”
© New York Times
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