PAWS holds ‘six-legged’ walkathon vs animal cruelty

MANILA, Philippines - A week after a video of girls killing a puppy became viral, the Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) staged yesterday its second “six-legged” walkathon to promote their campaign against animal cruelty.

A total of 659 people and more than 400 dogs joined the walkathon with the theme “Move Forward for Animal Welfare” at the SM Mall of Asia yesterday morning.

PAWS executive director Anna Cabrera said the number of this year’s participants is three times more than last year’s event.

“This is a protest against animal cruelty…This year we want to bring to the public’s attention the animals that suffer abuse and maltreatment. So we encouraged dog walkers to speak up for them by participating in this event,” she said.

Yesterday’s walkathon was also to celebrate the recent signing of the Amended Animal Welfare Act or Republic Act 10631.

Cabrera said since many Filipinos are active on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, reports of animal cruelty could easily go viral on the Internet and there is immediate public outrage.

She explained that while it was only last week when the video of Filipino girls stepping on a puppy came viral, it was actually an old video and a criminal case was filed last year against those behind the crush video.

The PAWS official also said that the crush video involving the puppy is not a clear indication that Filipinos are crueler compared to citizens of other countries.

“It is more of different forms of cruelty. In the Philippines, our problem is the dog meat trade while in other countries such as the United Kingdom is hunting and there are nationals who eat foie gras,” she said.

Cabrera said the challenge “is for everyone we try to educate so that the next generation would be a kinder and more compassionate generation.”