Masbate City (Masbate Island)

A Manila office worker arrives in Masbate expecting a provincial rodeo. Instead, he enters a world where cattle still organise the rhythms of life, where spectacle and labour blur under the island sun. In this literary fiction, Glenn Diaz moves through cowboy rituals, uneasy conversations and nocturnal pastures to explore what modern urban life has lost contact with, and what still survives at the edge of disappearance.

Masbate, one of the largest islands in the Philippine archipelago, revolves around cattle. Bulls, cows and pasture define its culture; ranches span the land, and labour has shaped a landscape marked by centuries of hoofprints. Lassoing, cattle wrestling and horse breaking are not just survival skills, but the basis of a singular public ritual: Southeast Asia’s largest rodeo.