Search for 34 missing cockfighting gamblers points to volcanic lake

Filipino authorities are investigating a claim that dozens of cockfighter enthusiasts who disappeared three years ago were killed and dumped in a volcanic lake.

At least 34 men - who had been accused of fixing cockfighting matches - disappeared without a trace in the capital Manila and its surrounding provinces.

Six suspects were later charged for kidnapping and on Thursday, one of them claimed in a TV interview that the victims were strangled to death and dumped into Taal Lake, which surrounds an active volcano.

Cockfighting - where people bet on roosters battling to death using bladed spurs tied to their feet - is a multi-million dollar industry in the Philippines.

The men are accused of being involved in livestreamed cockfights, which were popularised during the Covid pandemic when in-person matches were forced to shut. But this made the industry even more lucrative, generating some 620 million pesos ($10.8m; £8m) a month in licence earnings for the government.

A 2022 Senate investigation also revealed that daily bets on online cockfights ran up to 3 billion pesos ($52.4m; £38.8m).

But after the disappearance of the men, the livestreamed fights - known locally as "e-sabong" - came under scrutiny and then president Rodrigo Duterte eventually banned them. Traditional cockfighting is still legal in the Philippines.

On Thursday, Justice Secretary Crispin Remulla told reporters that authorities would look into deploying divers to look for human remains under the lake.

"We can't just let it pass and just let it go. We have to be responsible enough to seek the truth especially in cases like this," he said.

Remulla also added that authorities would look into the new development, adding that they are looking into finding more witnesesses.

Gambling is legal in predominantly Catholic Philippines even though church leaders are against it in all its forms.

Some online gambling operations have also been linked to criminal operations.

Last year, Filipino authorities uncovered massive scam centres and human trafficking rings hiding behind online casinos that serve mainland Chinese clients.

This led President Ferdinand Marcos to outlaw the online casinos known as Pogos or Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations.