Still no Atong Ang

How far can you go with P20 million? In the case of the manhunt for gambling tycoon Charlie “Atong” Ang, not that far, it seems.

That eye-popping amount is the reward the government has offered for any information on the whereabouts of Ang—up from the original P10 million announced just last January. Ang, along with several others, is facing charges of kidnapping with homicide and kidnapping with serious illegal detention in connection with the gruesome case of the missing “sabungeros” (cockfight aficionados).

Twenty million pesos is a colossal windfall for anyone, but no takers so far, it appears. Ang has remained at large for close to six months now, suggesting the power and influence of the billionaire businessman to mobilize resources, perhaps even buy official protection, to ensure that he is able to stay one step ahead of the law. And the reach of his sway is not conjecture: At least 14 police officers have been identified and detained for involvement in the kidnapping and murder of the missing sabungeros, with the National Police Commission dismissing 11 of them from service.

Despite the touted massive manhunt launched by authorities against Ang, the government seems nowhere near to apprehending the main suspect in the sensational case that had once gripped the imagination of a horrified public.

A major breakthrough

Ang allegedly masterminded the abduction and killing of 34 cockfight enthusiasts who all went missing in a span of just nine months, from April 2021 to January 2022. The victims were targeted, according to the police, because they were suspected of having cheated and committed fraud in e-sabong, the livestreamed cockfighting matches that had become the goldmine of the online gaming empire built by Ang.

Distraught families of the disappeared men scrounged around for information and police assistance for more than three years, but investigations into the disappearances were suspiciously slow and disjointed. As a June 2025 editorial in this paper lamented, “the police reported recovering clues and possible evidence here and there—the vehicles of some of the missing men found abandoned, or CCTV footage of an unidentified person using a victim’s ATM card to withdraw money—but the result so far has been the indictment of three suspects, all police officers … and arrest warrants for six guards of Manila Arena where some of the victims had disappeared.”

It was also in June 2025 that a major breakthrough came, when one of the suspects revealed in a TV interview the final fate of the seized sabungeros: They were allegedly strangled to death, their bodies tied to sandbags, and then dumped in Taal Lake in Batangas. The sandbags were to ensure that the bodies did not float to the surface. The witness added another horrifying detail: The number of victims was in fact over a hundred, he said.

Hefty reward money

The revelations prompted the government to intensify the investigation into the case, with Ang and 21 others eventually facing charges. Following Ang’s disappearance, an Interpol red notice was issued against him, supplemented with hefty reward money, both of which were expected to constrict his movements and clout. But even with the fugitive tycoon on the run, efforts to undermine the proceedings were apparently still underway.

In September last year, the police arrested two people for alleged bribery after a relative of one of the missing sabungeros, a complainant in the case against Ang et al., was approached by a man and a woman offering her P1.5 million in exchange for withdrawing her affidavit and ceasing cooperation in the case. The move was a “brazen attempt to obstruct justice,“ said then Philippine National Police acting chief Lt. Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr.

Just last Friday, several relatives of missing sabungeros filed a complaint for obstruction of justice against Caroline Cruz, one of Ang’s lawyers, for supposedly giving P40,000 monthly allowance to victims’ families in exchange for not cooperating in the case. More such attempts are to be expected, given the vast wealth at the suspects’ disposal.

Human remains

An entire year has passed since the country first heard the story of the sabungeros disappearing into the murky bottom of Taal Lake. According to a recent report by the Philippine National Police Forensic Group, approximately 1,400 of the 2,000 bones recovered from the lake have been confirmed as human remains. The bones underwent lengthy DNA, medico-legal, anthropological, radiographic imaging, and dental examinations, but even then, the process remains incomplete, the police said.

The next step is to determine whether the DNA profiles obtained from the recovered bones match any of the victims, and thereby make definitive individual identifications of the remains. Which means the case remains a long way off from lending any sense of comfort, let alone closure, to the victims’ families. The government can help in that regard, though—by once and for all tracking down Ang and bringing him to justice.