April 2021 to January 2022, no less than 34 “sabungeros”—fans and operators of the cockfighting (sabong) industry—went missing throughout Luzon, raising the country to alarm and speculation of a hidden underworld behind the much-popular activity. The COVID lockdown boom in online cockfighting saw sabong shift into the digital space, inviting massive wagers but also serious criminality.
New evidence from a whistleblower now points to a horrific destiny: the missing persons were supposedly strangled, mutilated, and thrown into Taal Lake by a police-security syndicate and supposed gambling lords like Charlie “Atong” Ang, whose possible connections include actress Gretchen Barretto. Fifteen police officers have been arrested under these shocking charges, and several witnesses have testified to corroborate the justice department’s accusations.
Authorities have undertaken a large forensic operation, seeking technical assistance from Japan to send underwater drones and charting the 560-foot bottoms of the lake over which the victims might be buried. But experts caution that Taal Lake’s volcanic soil might render it extremely difficult to retrieve remains, a predicament highlighted in recent editorials.
The scandal triggered renewed public indignation against e‑sabong—a previously legalized but now prohibited online gaming category—and laid bare its weaknesses to money laundering, game-fixing, and brutal crime. Families of the vanished and people in Manila call for justice and accountability for perpetrators and institutional facilitators as the investigation gains traction.
