IT DIDN’T take too long for 50-year old Polomolok mayor Ed Lumayag to relent and give Sun.Star the opportunity to visit his cock farm.

But goading him to talk about his hobby for the last 16 years took this writer several minutes before he eventually opened up.

As much as possible, he said, he did not want to highlight the interview with his passion for cockfighting.

“You know, I am now a public official,” he said in Cebuano. I was caught in a bind. I drove all 25 kilometers from Gensan just to feature the man who, six months ago, was sworn into office as mayor of this town that is host to Dole Philippines Inc. (Dolefil). And here I am, not sure if I could convince him to share his thoughts about the art of cockfighting.

Fortunately, my mindset was not into getting to know the life of a gambler. So when I said my purpose was to feature him as a breeder of fighting cocks, Lumayag’s eyes sparkled. After all, his stable of fighters won last year’s star-studded Gentleman’ Cup Stag Derby circuit held in Metro Manila, triggering a rush of orders for his fighting cocks from aficionados all over the country.

Instant fame

The feat made his name a byword in the cockfighting circle. And why shouldn’t it?

Edging renowned cocker Patrick Antonino by just half a point, 27.5 to 27 out of the possible 35 points, when their cocks met at the Araneta Coliseum in the last fight that ultimately decided the championship, gave Mayor Lumayag a new high.

For that defining victory, his stable won the championship trophy. It also earned him a cool one million pesos – not really a hefty sum considering that a trio (one roster and two hens) of imported breedline could costs from a low of US$700 to as high as US$3,000. Rather, it was the bonanza of his breakthrough triumph that had Lumayag brimming with pride.

Two weeks before this writer interviewed him, the Polomolok mayor revealed he just shipped out 90 fighting cocks to Manila. Each cock costs P10,000. That is a cool P9 million gross. A friend from Tarlac, he added, also ordered 50 cocks from him but he could only send 30.

“I don’t want to give him inferior stocks. I do not want to lose his friendship just because I want to earn money,” he said.

He likewise told this writer that he regularly sends fighting cocks to Indonesia at about P8,000 each – farm gate price.

Last year he sent a total of 100 of them to Indonesia.

Imported broods cocks and hens

At his sprawling eight-hectare property dotted with mango trees in Cannery, some six kilometers away from the town hall, Mayor Lumayag maintains a stable of 700 fighting cocks, close to 500 of them are stags. He also has a stable of around 200 brood cock and hens and ‘hundreds’ more at the range pen.

Stags are rosters just below 10 months old and have not yet shed their primary wings.

This age group of roosters is preferred in evenly-matched derbies as blind matching does not really give entry owners huge advantage over the other. They are also exciting to watch because of their aggressiveness.

Mayor Lumayag however said he still does not have his own bloodline. All of the mayor’s fighting cocks are locally-hatched and grown from imported breeds which he himself orders from the Texas and Oklahoma in the United States.

Each trio can be productive for up to seven years.

His favorites are the Kelso and Sweater bloodlines, the popular breeds nowadays. And for his clients in Indonesia, he raises the brown-red bloodline, also imported breeds.

Kelso fighting cocks are noted for their flying prowess and are excellent “grounders”. For the uninitiated, they are popular because of their “offbeat” characteristics.

Sweaters are powerful fighters on the ground. Indonesians prefer the brown-red, he said, because of their speed and powerful cutting abilities on the ground.

Indonesians released their gaffed fighting cocks within a foot of each other unlike the Filipinos who are thrilled to watch their cocks size up their enemy at least two meters apart before colliding at the center of the cockpit arena.

Conditioning

While Mayor Lumayag says bloodline counts, there is still no substitute to conditioning and proper feeding. He uses commercial fighting cock feeds rather than self-mixing his feeds, perhaps because he does not have a veterinarian or nutritionist in his cock farm.

His favorite is the Ninja line of gamefowl feeds. By his own reckoning, he spends about P60,000 a month for feeds, excluding wages of his eight employees at the cock farm.

By the time a rooster reaches 10-month old, he said he must have already spent P700 per head, including labor costs. Not bad at all, (return-of-investment) ROI-wise.

So why is his cock valued between P7,000 to P10,000? A businessman, who formerly managed his own construction firm, Mayor Lumayag said you have to factor in the cost of brood stocks, the incidental expenses and, of course, goodwill.

That is why he still is forced to go to cockfights, especially during derbies, to showcase his breeds.

But he no longer bets as much as he used to do when he was still in the private sector. He admits a P100,000 bet then was peanuts for him. Now, he says, he just relies on ‘financiers’ who use his fighting cocks during derbies.

The town mayor still bets on his cocks but gone are the heavy betting. His only demand – let the people know that they are using Lumayag’s bloodline of fighting cocks. “I do not want to crate an impression that I am using public funds for my cockfighting hobby,” he explains.

Humble beginnings

Modesty aside, he continued, was already a self-made businessman before he entered politics.

Born to tuba-gatherer father, Mayor Lumayag has come a long way. In 1986, already married to Clemen of Laguna, he tried his luck in Polomolok where he started his hauling business with just a couple of dump trucks and a payloader.

His business grew and reached its peaked when he was awarded as one of the contractors of the United States Agency for International Development-funded General Santos City Airport and the Sarangani Coastal road projects. He credits his success to his sense of fairness and hardworking traits.

The town mayor said he had never put one over another person – a trait he always reminds his five children. One of them, 23-year old Honey, a graduate of Interior Design at the University of the Philippines whom he was able to convince to postpone her masteral studies in the United States to help him straighten out the mayor’s office in Polomolok.

Lumayag has two other daughters studying at the Ateneo de Manila University and his two boys are in grade school at the Dole Philippines School.

(January 10, 2005 issue)