Entertainment and Sports

Entertainment in the Philippines is synonymous with live music . Everyone is a singer or a musician, from the humblest farmer to the richest politician. Bands play in the seediest bars and the ritziest hotels, while popular local groups like The Eraserheads grace MTV and give regular concerts in clubs and shopping malls. Filipinos are Asia's troubadours, so you won't have to go far to find live entertainment, whether your taste is for sultry lounge singers or hard rock.

Filipinos are enamoured of America and love the cinema . Standard fare in the Philippines is either the Hollywood blockbuster or the Pinoy (slang for "Filipino") blockbuster. You won't find much in the way of alternative cinema. Pinoy films usually have plots revolving around love, violence, sex or all three. Seeing a film in the Philippines isn't always a memorable experience because of the bizarre ticket system. You can't usually book a specific seat in advance, so you have to turn up and take potluck. Limitless tickets are sold, so you might end up standing at the back or sitting in an aisle. To make matters worse, films are screened continuously and you can enter the cinema at any time. All this makes for an endless number of disturbances that can drive even the most patient film lover to distraction.

By far the number one sport - again thanks to America - is basketball , with two hugely popular leagues playing games throughout the country. Matches in Manila are played at the Cuneta Astrodome on Roxas Boulevard.

Cockfighting might not be everyone's idea of fun, but there's no denying it's part of the Filipino psyche. National hero Jose Rizal said Filipino men love their roosters more than their children, and sometimes it seems he wasn't far wrong. Cockfights take place every Sunday in barangays (villages) throughout the archipelago, with farmers winning (or losing) the equivalent of a week's wages in what amounts to a two-minute explosion of feathers and blood. In Manila there are highly publicized "cock derbies" on which thousands, sometimes millions, of pesos are wagered.