Bernadette Soriano

Between 2021 and 2022, 34 individuals associated with sabong were reported missing in separate incidents across Luzon. While the cases initially drew public and media attention, sustained investigation efforts declined over time. No remains were located, no suspects were charged, and official updates became infrequent. The disappearances remained unresolved, with limited institutional follow-through and minimal public disclosure.


In June 2025, one of the detained suspects in the case filed a petition to qualify as a state witness and disclosed that the 34 missing individuals had allegedly been executed and their bodies submerged in Taal Lake—a volcanic caldera lake known for its geothermal activity and historically limited accessibility. The statement, if verified, reorients the investigation toward a forensic and environmental challenge previously unaccounted for in official efforts.

The statement brings attention to ongoing gaps in forensic capacity, potential criminal links, and the difficulty of maintaining institutional focus on unresolved cases.

Ambiguous loss and collective amnesia

In psychology, the term ambiguous loss refers to cases of disappearance without closure, where no remains are found and no finality is reached. Introduced by family therapist Pauline Boss, it describes a form of unresolved grief that poses long-term psychological challenges for individuals and, on a broader scale, complicates collective processes of acknowledgment and response.

Studies from contexts such as Argentina and Sri Lanka, both affected by prolonged histories of enforced disappearance, suggest that ambiguous loss may be linked to long-term psychological effects, including prolonged grief disorder, relational instability, and increased mental health risks. Its impact often extends beyond immediate families, influencing the well-being of subsequent generations.

In States of Denial, sociologist Stanley Cohen describes “willed blindness” as a collective coping response, where prolonged exposure to unresolved harm leads to emotional withdrawal. This distancing, while protective, may eventually translate into reduced public engagement and institutional inaction.

The disappearance of the sabungeros initially received widespread coverage, but public attention gradually declined as the cases remained unresolved.

Taal Lake: A perfect accomplice?

The lake cited in the testimony is not the crater lake inside Volcano Island but Taal Lake — the larger volcanic caldera lake that surrounds it. Unlike the crater, which is highly acidic and inhospitable to life, Taal Lake is freshwater, supporting aquatic species such as tawilis and tilapia. Both swimming and fishing remain viable in its waters, despite its volcanic origin.

Despite sustaining aquatic life, Taal Lake presents acute forensic constraints. Its depth, geothermal flux, and sedimentary instability complicate postmortem recovery. Though not acidic like crater lakes, its thermal profile and microbial activity may hasten decomposition and obscure remains. A 2017 study on tropical volcanic lakes suggests such conditions hinder long-term retrieval, rendering clean recovery increasingly improbable over time.

In Filipino oral tradition, volcanic lakes are viewed as symbolic boundaries, places associated with disappearance and transformation. Anthropologist Nicanor Tiongson refers to them as gates, where what enters may not return as it was. The use of Taal Lake, in this case, holds both practical and cultural implications.

Sabong, syndicates, and the political economy of disappearance

Understanding how the disappearances occurred requires examining what sabong had become, an informal, high-volume industry with limited oversight and growing ties to organized operations.

By 2021, e-sabong, the digital offshoot of traditional cockfighting, had grown into a ₱640-million-per-month industry, based on figures from PAGCOR. Its expansion was driven by pandemic lockdowns and the rise of mobile betting, but in the absence of effective regulation, it became vulnerable to exploitation by criminal groups.

Criminal networks allegedly used the platforms for money laundering and consolidation of influence. Rappler traced some operations to local political clans, including the Pinedas of Pampanga, while Philippine Center of Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) reported financial links between e-sabong firms and members of political dynasties, pointing to blurred lines between regulation and vested interest.

The missing sabungeros were not casual participants but informal workers: runners, handlers, and small-scale bettors embedded in an unregulated economy. Their roles became expendable once they posed legal or financial risks. By the time e-sabong was suspended in 2022, much of the harm had already taken root.

Disappearance emerged as a means of enforcement, sustained by institutional gaps. Impunity, in this context, was not incidental; it reflected structural conditions that allowed it to persist.

The state witness and the law’s sluggish response

A detainee seeking state witness status has alleged that the men were killed and their bodies submerged in Taal Lake. However, legal and procedural barriers to prosecution remain substantial.

Under Republic Act 6981 (Witness Protection Act), a suspect may only qualify as a state witness if they:
  • Are not the most guilty party,
  • Can offer indispensable testimony,
  • And provide evidence unattainable elsewhere.
Even with the testimony, prosecuting without physical evidence poses legal challenges. Philippine courts require corpus delicti to establish that a crime occurred. In the absence of remains or corroborating material proof, conviction is unlikely.

Complicating this is the fragmentation of response. PNP, NBI, the Coast Guard, and local governments all have partial jurisdiction. No single body has the expertise or mandate to orchestrate deep-lake forensic recovery.

This is what scholars call structural impunity—not an absence of law, but the absence of coordination, competence, and political will.

Recovering the unrecoverable: Is closure still possible?

While technologies like sonar, sediment sampling, and remotely operated vehicle (ROV) searches present possible avenues, recovery remains unlikely. Taal’s conditions: its depth, instability, and turbidity, limit visibility and access. The Philippines has no specialized forensic limnologists, and DNA extraction underwater remains both expensive and inconclusive.

Even if remains are recovered, estimating the postmortem interval (PMI) after four years is highly unreliable. Identification would depend on DNA comparison with family reference samples; if available, uncontaminated, and still viable.