Gone to the dogs?

[Heartgirl26]

Dogs meant for slaughter were rescued in time by authorities. Photo by Luis Buenaflor




MANILA, Philippines - Authorities arrested brothers Rolando and Roger Maravilla in Mabalacat, Pampanga for transporting 56 dogs to Baguio City where dog meat is sold in restaurants that offer comfort food—asocena—a delicacy whose ingredients are man’s best friend, cruelty and apathy.

Killing dogs for their meat is a barking violation of the Animal Welfare Act which is continuously defied by offenders due to impunity. No one has ever been punished (severely) for cruelty to animals.

This is probably why the Maravillas continue to do what they do despite being collared twice for the same offense last year.

Big business

An informant, “Rolf” of Pangasinan, shared that dog meat traders that frequent his town boast of getting their contraband to Baguio by dangling P15,000 as grease money to highway authorities, in exchange for slippery passage—a small investment as the Philippines’ dog meat industry rakes in P174 million annually, according to the nongovernment organization Linis Gobyerno.

Despite flying under the radar, the dog meat industry prospers, as long as the buying continues. Dog traders scour nearby cities for people willing to kick out their azkals for a quick buck.

“Batangas, Laguna, Cavite, Iloilo and Negros are the suppliers of dogs for Baguio City," said Luis Buenaflor, Director for Operations and External Affairs of the Animal Kingdom Foundation, an affiliate of the International Wildlife Coalition Trust based in the United Kingdom.

Buenaflor has worked with local authorities in a continuing crackdown on some of Luzon’s most brazen dog traders.

Dog meat trade

Dogs are purchased for about P150 to P200 at source and could fetch from P2,500 to P3,000 when sold in markets in northern Luzon, an exponential mark-up that the enterprising finds hard to pass up.

Animal welfare group Network for Animals estimated that over half a million dogs are slaughtered in the Philippines every year, even if the trade has already been outlawed in the country since 1998.

Dog slaughter not only violates the Animal Welfare Act. The move to prohibit the slaughtering of dogs for meat is also bolstered by the Rabies Act of the Philippines, which indicates that eating the meat of a rabid dog is a serious health concern.

Last year health officials in Iloilo administered prophylaxis on several people who ate a rabid dog which bit and killed a man from Maasin town. Yet even with its serious health threats, the killing and eating persist.

A push for animal rights

Animal welfare groups are taking the campaign beyond traditional grounds. Animal abuse made cyber buzz recently with a case of a college student who killed a cat and boasted about it on his blog. Another college kid laundered a puppy in a washing machine and pinned the helpless pooch to the clothesline to dry. More disturbing is the recently exposed “crush” website where animals are tortured and killed on cyber cam to the delight of paying, online perverts.

For animal abuse a multimedia information drive is key. For the dog meat trade, operations and raids must be relentless.

“I can definitely say because of the campaign we have been doing, dog meat is no longer sold in the public market of Baguio,” said Buenaflor. “Almost all the illegal slaughterhouses have closed, and compared to, say 10 years ago, animal welfare awareness is now in the consciousness of the citizenry,” he added.

Culture of cruelty

Dog eating is not uniquely Filipino although westerners bad-pressed our country as dog-eating, as we are blood jelly- and duck embryo-devouring. Dog eating is prominent in Korea and in China, whose recent Dog Meat Festival is earning worldwide flak. Dog eating is clandestine in Canada, Switzerland and many other non-Jewish and non-Muslim countries.

Where eating dog meat is practiced, the excuse has always been “culture”. In northern Philippines dog eating is associated with traditional tribal feasts and burial rituals.

But what alarmed animal rights groups in the last 25 years is the increasing slaughter of dogs for commercial consumption. The biggest market for dog meat is still Mountain Province—its frigid climate justifying heaping servings of asocena—in between gulps of gin or beer to keep warm.

According to Buenaflor, ignorance is the biggest obstacle in fighting the dog meat industry, followed by the cruelty of those that kill and eat dogs, and the apathy of those that don’t, but are not doing anything about it.

“Then you have the mistaken notion that dog eating is part of the culture which of course is not. Culture is not an excuse for cruelty," explained Buenaflor.





Hello forum mate,
Last 23th of june this year i was in my computer about pass lunch time and i come up in a website of ABS-CBN news page, then this is what i fornd out..I was so amaze that the dogs meat can be eaten by humans oh nooooooo....Before my fiance was telling me that pampanga the people there are eating dogs but i did not take serious on that coz i was thinking that my fiance just joking at me,but now after i read this i was surprise...

[Nickleback99]

Yeah but if Ur starving, food is food no matter what animal. Woof! Woof!

[trajan12]

Its so disheartening to read it!

[jon1]

I would be cautious about eating dog as filipinos are not that consciencious about vaccinating dogs (unless is a pure breed).

Every year 60 - 100 people die of rabies each year in the Philippines as a result of eating rabid dogs. You all might want to remind yourself about getting the rabies vaccination or keeping it current.

For me it's like cannibalism as I consider myself a dog