Divers have spent more than a month searching a lake south of Manila for the bodies of men with links to the Philippines' bloody national obsession: cockfighting.

They were murdered by rogue police, a government witness says, allegedly for rigging matches at the height of the country's pandemic-era craze for betting on livestreamed cockfights, or "e-sabong."

The disappearances led then-President Rodrigo Duterte to announce a total ban, but three years later, the e-sabong industry is still thriving.