Guest guest Posted July 2, 2006 Report Share Posted July 2, 2006 Fighting for the furries Manila Times Sunday, July 02, 2006 By Anna Nieves H. Cabrera, Board member, The Philippine Animal Welfare Society “BANTAY.” It’s the usual name for dogs in the Philippines, as in “Fido” for man’s best friend in the United States. Roughly translated, the Filipino word “bantay” means, “guard” or “sentinel,” which has essentially been the central role of dogs in local households for a very, very long time. Only recently have some of us caught on the Western idea of dogs as animals that need to be walked and played with—like a regular member of the family. Dogs that are trained are referred to as “magaling” (amazing), and often considered an oddity in the country. They are showpieces to visiting friends, as dogs that can “sit” or “shake hands.” The more common scenario of owning these four-legged creatures is the “outside dogs.” You see them stationed just outside the gates of houses. They are on the sidewalks, two sometimes, and technically strays. But once the city pound personnel make their rounds to catch these dogs, out would come the dog owners to bark, “Hey, don’t catch that dog. It’s not a stray; it’s mine!” “Then, why is it outside, sir?” would be the natural question from the city pound folk. The reply would be the feeble excuse that the dog had just “escaped,” when truth be told, the dog had never even been inside the yard, much less the family home. Dogs—especially native dogs (mongrels or Filipino dogs)—are not kept in the average Filipino home. Now, if the dog is pure-breed and expensive (a shih-tzu, sharpei, pug, etc.), then the owner will allow it to stay inside the house. There is a reason why the colloquial term for a native mongrel is “askal.” It is the combination of the words “aso[ng] [dog]” and “kalye [street].” Native dogs are commonly seen outside the home and unsupervised. And though they do have owners (who give them leftovers and the occasional trip to the barangay clinic for rabies shots), they are literally “street dogs.” Half stray and half wild, these dogs sleep faithfully in front of the gate of the house and still wag their tails when the master comes home. To have askals in the earlier days was acceptable, when most people still lived in provinces. There were no fences or yards to speak of so the family dog roamed freely alongside the livestock (pigs and chickens, usually). Unfortunately, this provincial practice of dog ownership carried on in the urbanized areas, which gave way to the problem of askals. Because of the prevalence of street dogs, pedestrians would fear traversing sidewalks. In subdivisions, joggers with “sticks” are a common sight, so they could shoo away the askals. But what is really sad about the situation is the obvious discrimination on askals. If a dog is good looking, it is presumed to come from a particular breed; the rest are askals. It is the purebred dogs that are fed commercial dry dog food and the native dogs leftovers. At the PAWS (Philippine Animal Welfare Society) Animal Shelter (PARC), the most common cases of abandonment are made by dog owners who want to make space for say, a Labrador, or another purebred. They must “get rid” of the native dog. Those who choose to remain their askal keep them tied up for eternity, as some sort of burglar alarm system. This dog is none the luckier for it is left exposed to the summer sun and rains. To hope for an occasional pat on the head from the master would be too much. The only attention the dog gets is perhaps a kick or a slipper thrown at it when it barks at another passing askal. Because of boredom, he chews on his leash or chain to the end of his days. Breaking the cycle How to bring about changes in dog ownership practices was the impetus for the establishment of the pioneer animal welfare group PAWS. Led by Nita Hontiveros-Lichauco, the organization came to be in 1986. With less than 10 active members who held meetings at Lichauco’s dinner table back then, PAWS started out with modest projects such as rescuing injured kittens and maltreated dogs from the streets. The group’s mission, then and now, is to make people realize the value of native dogs; that they matter too. They veer away from the term askal for the very reason that dogs should not be left on the streets. For when dogs become street dogs, they do not receive proper care, pose health hazards to the community and become easy targets of cruel people. PAWS’ goals, therefore, are to do away with the notion of keeping dogs in the yards; to spread the message that dogs need companionship and interaction; and to introduce the concept of spaying or neutering pets. In 1998 Oscar Lei, the first PAWS volunteer who completed a scholarship from the Humane Society of the United States and interned at the Houston SPCA, excitedly told his co-members, “I know how we can make people more open to the idea of adopting pets we have rescued. We will ‘repackage’ them!” He elaborated that in the United States, animal shelters rehabilitated abandoned animals, spayed/neutered them and found them potential new homes through “adoptive parents,” who would pay an “adoption fee” for the opportunity to give these animals a good life. Not all PAWS officers agreed with Lei’s proposal, though. Volunteers who broke away from the group said that funds for building such a center would be put into better use by financing more humane education and spay-neuter projects. Those who stayed on and agreed with the proposal went on to build the PAWS Animal Rehabilitation or PARC in 1999, after the passage of the Animal Welfare Act (1998). By year 2000 the structure was completed and the group took in the first set of “adoptable” dogs from the Marikina City Pound, in an effort to jump-start its adoption program. For the first few years, it appeared that the doomsayers were right. What had they been thinking? People said that stray dogs were a “dime a dozen.” Who would pay an adoption fee to take in a native dog? But even then, volunteers working in newspapers floated the existence of the animal shelter and its goals to editors. It was the newspaper columnist Neal Cruz who launched the first public appeal of adoption at the shelter, so as to be “at peace with one’s conscience.” Slowly, by word of mouth, through posters, adoption rates began to pick up, which became opportunities to educate people on spay-neuter and responsible pet ownership. RP’s first animal anticruelty law When the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) was passed on February 11, 1998, there was probably no other person happier than Nita Hontiveros-Lichauco, PAWS’ president. For 14 years, she lobbied for the law by enlisting the help of volunteers. These were lawyers and pet lovers who had no legal background, who tirelessly researched on anticruelty animal laws from developed countries. Pivotal to the passage of AWA in Congress was former Rep. Escudero (father of Rep. Chiz Escudero), former senators Letty Ramos-Shahani and Orly Mercado.) Before AWA, the only other law that protected animals in the Philippines was the Metro Manila Ordinance 82-02, a law that banned the slaughter of dogs for their meat and the dog meat trade, only within Metro Manila. Lichauco witnessed how the police would chase dog meat traders, whose trucks were loaded with tied-up dogs, obviously bound for slaughterhouse, only to give up the chase at the boundary of Metro Manila. Her frustration strengthened only her resolve: She vowed to put every inch of her energy toward lobbying for a national law that would make animal cruelty a crime. “Lobbying would have been much easier if animals could vote,” Lichauco observed. Animals were clearly at the bottom of the barrel when it came to the government priorities. Since reorganizing PAWS in 1986, Lichauco bore the brunt of being called “eccentric” by the many who did not understand her cause. Even the media coverage on animal issues was unheard of back then. Only the blessing of pet dogs at the Mount Carmel Church in New Manila to celebrate of the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi—an event that Lichauco started in 1995—would be highlighted in newspapers on television. And that was but once a year. But although animal matters had begun to look up with the passage of the law, little did animal welfare advocates know it was simply marked the beginning of an uphill battle. PAWS today sits as one of the 14 members of the Committee on Animal Welfare (CAW), a body that was subsequently created to help the government draft the rules and regulations for the enactment of the AWA. The CAW members are themselves volunteers, while its affiliate the Bureau of Animal Industry-Animal Welfare Division has hardly a budget to speak off for information dissemination. Since its inception in 1998, CAW has managed to create 15 Administrative Orders to govern how animals are kept or treated in various sectors—from businesses like pet shops, all the way to the treatment and transport of animals. On the issue of animal cruelty, prosecution of animal offenders has been difficult to implement because of the Filipino’s natural aversion to long-drawn court proceedings, besides the fact that advocates face ridicule for testifying on something that is still deemed trivial—the death and torture of a neighbor’s pet dog or cat. Advocates lament that there is a huge disparity between the way animals are treated in more developed countries. The first anticruelty law in the United States was penned in 1829, while the British had their first anticruelty law in 1822, with Dick Martin’s “Act to Prevent Cruel and Improper Treatment of Cattle.” High hopes Animal rights still have a long way to go in the Philippines, but the seeds have already been planted. The visibility of animal welfare-related news and the mushrooming of groups that fight for the rights of animals are testimonies to this development. The day that the majority fully grasps the idea that the fight for animals is not a matter of prioritizing animals over people, but purely a concept that all living beings are connected, is what PAWS and its partners look forward to. The realization that we are, in effect, taking care of ourselves when we take care of the animals around us. That violence and cruelty inflicted on animals precipitate and encourage acts of violence on human beings. Until then, animal welfare advocates and their sympathizers will continue their fight for the furries. http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2006/july/02/yehey/weekend/20060702week1.htm\ l Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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