It's a doggone life in Binalbagan

One of last Wednesday night's episodes in the popular tv program " Kontrobersyal, " which is hosted by Boy Abunda weekly on ABS-CBN, dealt with what appears to be a rural health program that is destined to become very controversial indeed.

The program, initiated by the mayor of the municipality of Binalbagan in Negros Occidental, seeks to eliminate the problem of rabies posed by stray dogs in the town. The aim of the program is no doubt good. What is not good is the manner in which it is being carried out.

And how is the program being carried out? The mayor has created a special team of dog killers armed with guns, sending them on the prowl at night in search of stray dogs and then to shoot the hapless animals on sight.

At the outset, let it be made clear that we do not wish to appear as belittling the grave threat posed by rabid dogs. On the contrary, we acknowledge that rabies is a very dangerous killer disease. In fact, we are for the adoption of any means necessary to address the problem.

By " any means necessary, " however, we are not suggesting that killing stray dogs on sight in a shooting binge solves the problem of rabies and therefore should be considered as an option for defense against the disease.

For one, the problem is very precise, which is rabid dogs. But the solution employed by the mayor of Binalbagan is, almost literally, the shotgun approach, i.e., to kill all stray dogs on sight, regardless of whether they are rabid or not.

To invoke the name of another animal, it is like burning the house down to get rid of a mouse. We do not profess to be a better public administrator than the mayor of Binalbagan. But any fool can see this approach is unnecessary, wasteful, impractical and cruel.

Our guess is that the mayor of Binalbagan just wanted the quickest way out of his fix. He is probably just unwilling to test other possibilities and ideas, contrary to what good managers normally do when confronted with a situation.

Why, even his justification for the barbaric method he has chosen to employ consisted of a mere one-liner. " Which would you prefer, human life or the life of a stray dog?, " he told the nation by way of the tv camera.

For God's sake, how shallow can anyone get, which is why we will leave it at that, as undeserving the dignity of an answer. What the mayor of Binalbagan should be told, however, is that there are other means of addressing the problem of rabies than shooting stray dogs on sight.

The universe, with Binalbagan in it, is expanding at rates too fantastic to imagine. But we can surmise that in the consequent galaxy of brilliant ideas, there has got to be one that suits the needs of the mayor just fine.

For one, since he already has a team, why doesn't the Binalbagan mayor order a roundup of all stray dogs and have them given anti-rabies shots. He does not even have to spend a centavo for the drugs. A little research can lead him to the right people to approach.

An anti-rabies vaccination drive held in coordination with some giant multinational drug company and adequately covered by media can provide the best possible results and everybody can walk away happy.

Look at it this way. The mayor gets his name and picture in the papers and on tv. The multinational drug company can get the publicity it deserves for its civic responsibility. The Binalbagan folk are rid of the rabies threat. And the dog escapes with its life.

Actually, there must be other viable options out there if only the mayor of Binalbagan did not have to rush. The problem is serious, but it is not something that could not wait a day or two of serious thinking. Even stray dogs do not bite daily.

Ironically, the situation in Binalbagan is even better than in my beloved Cebu City, where stray dogs are rounded up and then gassed to death. For all its cosmopolitan pretensions, officials in this Queen City of the South are even more crude than their Binalbagan counterparts.

Gassing dogs, not with lethal chemicals that kill in a snap but with obnoxious fumes from burning rubber, takes a little while longer to kill them. Unlike getting shot dead, stray dogs in Cebu City agonize for hours before they are poisoned silly and lapse into benevolent death.