Ramon Villarosa Mitra, RIP - Roses And Thorns

There is an unpublished play that starts with a beautiful Filipina addressing the audience thus:

"I never met a man so obsessed with his cock. It's the center of his universe. And he expects me to stand in awe of it. As if it were Cleopatra's Needle or the Washington Monument. He thinks it is the level with which he will move the world. He's always cocky about his cock, says it's always in top fighting form, ready to go into action anytime. On waking up, he plays with his cock, fondles it the whole day and can't sleep without smothering it with affection.

"Here he comes now holding his cock as usual."

Then, the main character appears on the stage holding his gamecock.

He says: "I can't understand how the cock has fallen to such disrepute. Take this cock. Doesn't its crown give it a regal look? Its spurs show that it is ever ready for combat. Its courage is legendary. As for its gallantry, you should see the gallant way it shares its food with its hens. Because it heralds the dawn, the cock is a universal solar symbol. Christian lore says that a cock heralded the Nativity. This explains its presence as a weathervane in church spires. In Islam, the cock is the most venerated creature. A giant cock is said to stand from the first to the seventh heaven. When it crows, all other cocks on earth follow. What is the cock today? A vulgar phallic symbol! It can't even cross a street without having its motives questioned."

That cocker could be the late Ramon Mitra's alter ego. Shortly before he died, we had lunch together. He knew that his days were numbered and one of the things he told me was that he wanted his body to lie in state in a cockpit. To him, the cockpit was a national institution that was the very spirit of camaraderie and honesty.

Monching Mitra died last Monday. We won't repeat the story of his life and career that has already been written in all the newspapers. What we want to emphasize is his activity that kept him in touch with the common man and that was cockfighting. He was an avid cocker and was conscious of the fact that it is the oldest spectator sport. The earliest ampitheatre was a cockpit. The rooster is to this day the main symbol of France. And it was the original king of sports and sport of kings. If you take a tour of the old palaces in London, you will see that they all had cockpits inside. In the United States, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln were cockers.

We will be happy to see the day when the Philippines follows all advanced nations in abolishing this cruel sport. In the meantime, we are happy that the late Speaker Mitra has paid tribute to our oldest sport. With Mitra's homage, the roosters have something to crow about.