‘Where there’s cattle, there’s rodeo’

Yee-haw!: Participants at the Rodeo Festival in Masbate City, the Philippines, dancing to the beat. — The Straits Times/ANN

A honky-tonk twang echoes across a fairground as cowhands wrangle cattle inside a dirt-floored stadium. The scene would be typical in Texas, but this rodeo is happening about 12,900km away, on an island in the Philippines.

Nearly every spring for 30 years, the best wranglers in the country have travelled to the island province of Masbate to test their skills at the Rodeo Festival in Masbate City. It is both a sporting event and a celebration of Philippine cowboy and cowgirl culture.