Baseball
There is a game rather similar to marbles that the younger boys play a great deal. A ring is drawn on the ground and within this are placed small stones or centavos (cĕn-tä′-vōs), Philippine copper coins worth half a cent; the players stand back a certain distance and toss other stones or coins, trying to knock out the ones inside the ring.
Cockfighting
The most harmful amusement in the Philippines is cockfighting. The present government has limited the enjoyment of this sport to Sunday afternoons and public holidays, but even so it is a great source of evil in every community. The cockpit is generally a large roofed enclosure with rude bamboo seats rising in tiers like circus benches, and with a fenced arena in the center in which the chickens fight.
A small knife blade, keen and sharp pointed, is fastened to a leg of each of the birds, and when all is ready they are put into the arena to fight. The owner of a gamecock trains him carefully, making him scratch to develop the muscles of his back and legs, and in other ways preparing him for the ring. The fights are often drawn out until one of the chickens, weak from loss of blood and from the exertion, falls over dead. Then the winner crows, if he has any breath left, the crowds watching the fight cheer loudly, bets are paid, new ones are made on the next pair of birds, and the excitement continues. At sunset the people reluctantly leave the ring and return to their homes, the winners jingling their gains, the losers hoping for better luck next time, and the owners of birds either proudly showing off their conquering heroes or tenderly carrying home the limp bodies of their pets to be boiled for hours in the vain hope of making their hard muscles tender for the table. Much time and money are wasted on this cruel and rather disgusting sport, and it is to be hoped that it may decrease from year to year and finally die out entirely.
Each community in the Philippines has its patron saint, and once a year, usually on the day celebrated by the church in honor of that saint, occurs the fiesta (fĭ-ĕs′-tä), or feast day, of the town. These holidays are looked forward to with joyful anticipation, and most elaborate preparations are made for the entertainment of guests. A great tower or arch, sometimes seventy-five or a hundred feet high, is built of coconut logs, bamboo, and rattan. Lanterns of gayly colored paper are hung over this, and at night men climb laboriously over it, lighting candles in each lantern; the effect is exceedingly pretty and the lights burn for several hours.
Fiesta Tower