5 city pound execs face cruelty raps

MANILA, Philippines — Rights group Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) filed an animal cruelty complaint against officials of the Manila city pound for keeping rescued cats and dogs in cramped and filthy cages.

PAWS executive director Ana Cabrera yesterday said the complaint was filed on Tuesday after three witnesses testified to seeing the dire conditions of rescued animals during their visit at the city pound for their undergraduate thesis last March.

Among those charged with violating the Animal Welfare Act are city veterinarian and Veterinary Inspection Board head Virgil Benedict de Jesus as well as Nicanor Santos Jr., Narcisa Javier, Joey Diaz and Hector Dimaculangan, who are officers of the Pound and Animal Disease Control Services Division and members of the VIB.

They were also charged with administrative offenses of grave misconduct, gross neglect of duty and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service.

According to the complaint, at least 60 cats and dogs were kept in“cramped and crowded conditions” and in “filthy, rusty, and unsanitary cages” with only one food bowl each filled with filthy water.

The respondents also “failed to ensure that the sick and dying animals were kept separate from those that were presumably healthy,” the complainants said.

Photos showed that some rescued animals wore collars, indicating that they had owners when they were rescued.

The complainants also said they witnessed the city pound workers’ “aggressive manner” in handling the animals, who were mostly “diseased, dying, and dead.”

The complainants said they were surprised that following the imposition of quarantine measures in Metro Manila, they saw a photo of an empty city pound.

As to a respondent’s claim that the rescued animals were brought to the Philippine Pet Birth Control Center Foundation to be spayed and neutered, a veterinarian there told PAWS that there was no such arrangement, it added.

The STAR has reached out to Mayor Isko Moreno and his public information office for comment but has yet to receive a reply as of press time.