Traditional animal jousting festival halted due to animal cruelty laws

Local officials have suspended the annual Turogpo Festival, held every Black Saturday in the town of Carigara in Leyte, citing animal cruelty laws.

The festival was last held in 2019 but was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic. It featured traditional animal jousting events, including carabao (water buffalo) and horse fights.

Spectators at the festival were known to place bets on the animals they believed would emerge as the winner.

Carigara mayor Eduardo Ong Jr. said that the town will instead celebrate the festival through a Mass and a short program.

Explaining their reason for cancelling the annual tradition, local officials cited the Animal Welfare Act of 1998, which penalizes any person who subjects any animal to cruelty, maltreatment, or neglect.

Named after a Waray word that means “to match,” the first Turogpo festival took place 400 years ago as a show of protest by Filipinos against its Spanish colonizers.

Once held on Good Friday, the festival was moved to Black Saturday in 1983 so that local parishioners would not be distracted from observing Christ’s passion and death.
While the festival’s cancelation is a win for animal welfare activists, the battle to end animal combat still has a long way to go in the Philippines, where cockfighting remains legal and widely popular.

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