On March 24, 2013 at Brgy. 186 Zone 16, 400 cats and dogs got their anti-rabies vaccine for free. PART would like to credit the generosity of Dr. Arturo Pangan and Ms. Annie Panes, through which the anti-rabies drive was made possible.
PART’s founder Connie Langlois’s views on animal welfare:
What do you think should be done to improve animal welfare and rights in the Philippines?
Education is key and we can’t stress this enough. Teach your children at an early change to be compassionate, not only to each other, their family, their friends but to animals. Teach them to be their voice. When we learn to be compassionate to every living being on this earth, we in turn learn to be compassionate with each other.
More government involvement and funding! Even with the amended Animal Welfare Act (AWA), unless the powers that be implement the law to the fullest then it’s worthless.
Oftentimes we get reports from people about a dog being abused and we advise them to talk to their baranggay first and the answer is almost always, the baranggay don’t care.
People in authority should be given the proper tools and training on how to deal with reports of animal abuse. And guilty persons should be punished to the full extent of the law. While the amended AWA is good, it needs to be better; stricter punishment and tougher penalties are needed.
The government needs to work with the various localities and provide funding to city shelters.
Unfortunately, from what we’ve seen, it’s the very people that run the pounds that are committing the cruelty themselves and people just turn their head the other way and they convince themselves it doesn’t exist; or it has become the “norm” that people have accepted it.
When you have a local city pound whose own people are selling the animals for profit and the powers that be don’t care, organizations like us, and we’re small compared to the others that have been around longer and are much more established, it makes it extremely difficult for us to wage a battle against them. For one, we have very limited resources, both financially and in terms of the number of people. But we will continue to fight for animal rights because we believe that things will get better. It has to.
We need honest politicians who are also animal lovers to be in government. We need people who will work with the various animal welfare organizations and folks that are willing to stand up and speak for the animals who don’t have a voice in the matter simply because they can’t vote.
As Gandhi said, “the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
Bogart’s story, one of PART’s high profile rescues. Bogart suffered third-degree burns on his back when someone threw boiling water on him to shoo him away. He is now recovered and is waiting for his new forever home. Please contact PART if you are interested to adopt Bogart.
Make the #FIFTYPESOSFRIDAY Pledge to Save the Lives of Abandoned Pets in the Philippines!
