COCKFIGHTING aficionados now have no choice but to indulge in their favorite “sport” only on Sundays, legal holidays and, during fiestas, up to three days. This after the Supreme Court Second Division upheld the decision of the Court of Appeals (CA) that had also upheld the decision of the Regional Trial Court of Bohol limiting the occasions of holding cockfighting to such days only. Gov. Erico Aumentado announced the Supreme Court decision Friday during his weekly radio program The Governor Reports aired live and simulcast over dyRD and dyTR in Tagbilaran City and dyZD in Ubay town and delayed broadcast over dyDL in Carmen town.

In a letter to the litigants and their lawyers dated January 23, 2008, Assistant Clerk of Court Ma. Luisa Laurea quoted the resolution of the High Tribunal dated December 5, 2007 in G.R. No. 176004. Considering the allegations, issues and arguments adduced in the petition for review on certiorari, the Court resolves to deny the petition for failure to sufficiently show any reversible error in the assailed judgment to warrant the exercise of this Court's discretionary appellate jurisdiction, she wrote.

The case stemmed from Aumentado's issuance of Executive Order No. 2 strictly implementing Presidential Decree No. 449. Having received complaints from parents and school authorities that their children or students skip classes to go to the cockpits in order to earn a few “quick bucks” as motorcycle watch boys – or even maciador or bet callers, he issued the order. A certain Concepcion Ramo of Baclayon town had questioned the legality of the order, invoking the autonomy that the Local Government Code of 1991 gives to local government units (LGUs).

Provincial Legal Officer Handel Lagunay however clarified that in statutory construction, in case of “conflict of laws,” the national law prevails. The “conflicting laws are harmonized,” hence the LGUs regulates cockfighting through business license, mayor's permit and such other details as location of the cockpit that must follow local zoning ordinances. Lagunay also said Supreme Court decisions form part of the law of the land, hence the decision on the Ramo vs. Aumentado case will hold true all across the nation.