Despite the cultural evolution over many millennia, the “sport” of cockfighting has persistently savored human beings with pleasurable sensations, exhibited as an institutionalized practice that preserves the Filipino’s cultural heritage and, concomitantly, constructs the locals’ national identity. On a national scale, the obsession with cockfighting has been discernible within the past few decades, expressed through the resurgence of this tradition as a prolific industry in virtual space, entitled e-sabong. Reckoning this novel subject as a cultural phenomenon that is highly pertinent to the study of popular culture, this project aims to examine how e-sabong has transcended beyond the mere form of gambling that contributes to the degradation of ingrained masculinity and the normalization of human violence
within the Philippines’ context. The magazine also employs the discourse analysis framework in association with the theoretical lens of cultural capital, hegemony, and gender performativity to justify the higher discourse inherent in this practice of cockfighting.
