ILOILO City – This southern city now has an ordinance further regulating cockpits and cockfights.
The Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP), during Wednesday’s regular session, passed the new measure which provides specific guidelines and supplements Presidential Decree (PD) 449, or the Cockfighting Law of 1974.
PD 449 is very general and not enough because it only focuses on days when cock derbies are held such as during Sundays, legal holidays, fiestas, and special cases, said Councilor Romel Duron, author of the new ordinance and chairman of the SP committee on games and amusement.
Under the approved ordinance, the city mayor may issue special permits for special cockfights upon pervious application and upon resolution of the SP for the following purposes:
* For the support of national and local fundraising campaigns for charitable purposes as maybe authorized by the mayor;
* For barangay or district fiestas, the operators and/or promoters of cockfight/derbies of a licensed cockpit shall submit their letter of application for a special permit indicating the schedule of event to be held for a period not exceeding three days addressed to the city mayor in order to conduct cockfighting event and upon approval of Resolution of No Objection (RONO) of the SP, they shall comply necessary permit prior conduct of such event; and
* The application for special permit in relation to the barangay or district fiestas shall be applied two weeks before the scheduled cockfight/derbies.
It further stipulates that all cockpits will register with the Office of the City Mayor and will not be allowed to operate without the required permit to be secured annually, not later than January 20th of the incoming year.
The new ordinance also requires the cockfighting officials to register with the Office of the City Mayor. These include the promoter, pit manager, referees (sentenciador), bet managers (kasador), bet takers (kristo), and gaffers (mananari).
They will also have to pay a registration annually: P220 for promoter; P165 for pit manner; P110 for referee; P110 for bet manager; P82.50 for bat taker; and P82.50 for gaffer.
Cockfighting officials who will officiate or function as such without the permit will face penalties not less than P500 but not more than P2,000 or suffer imprisonment of not less than one month but not more than three months, or both at the discretion of the court.
The city mayor may also revoke or cause the revocation of such permit together with the corresponding license issued by the Business Permits and Licensing Office even before its expiration when public interest so demands.
Moreover, specific fees will also be imposed upon issuance of permit. These include application filing fee of P110; for cockpit registration (annually), P1,100; for promoter of local derby or special cockfights, P1,100 per day.
Also, for special derby assessment per winning cock, the amount of P100 per fight shall be collected and paid to the city treasurer.
“Very minimal… for all you know ang pusta da nila, waay ganubu sa P5,000, may P1 million gani. We just ask for P100 (per fight) para makabulig man sa syudad. In return, kon may bulang, damu man mabuhi nga negosyo – may hotel, transport, restaurant,” Duron said.
This local ordinance is an offshoot of the issue and “differences in opinion” that transpired relative to the conduct of cockfighting activities in line with the celebration of the feast of Nuestra Señora dela Candelaria earlier this year.
The city councilor noted the operator of Iloilo Coliseum asked for RONO only a few days before the actual event and subsequently retracted that they do not need to have RONO for their activity.
The new ordinance will take effect 10 days after its publication in a newspaper of general circulation./PN
