sick dog catcher
Quezon City police stopped Enrique Panlaque in a Mitsubishi L300 cargo van about 10 p.m. on Sunday. In the van were 75 dogs, including 67 sick ones, that Mr. Panlaque intended to sell to butchers for 600 pesos ($12.24) each. His employees had been observed buying unwanted dogs and snatching stray dogs to sell to meat markets although Panlaque has been arrested six times previously in seven years for selling dog meat. Apparently he wasn’t convicted and punished enough to dissuade him from resuming snatching and selling sick dogs to butchers in Northern Luzon. Demand and supply…
I wrote in July about raids on Baguio City Market and Burnham Park where Baguio City Police and animal rights advocates of Animal Kingdom Foundation and the National Meat Inspection Service arrested six or seven dog meat traders then seized more than 565 pounds of dog flesh.
Republic Act 9482 (anti-rabies law) and the Animal Welfare Act indicate a fine of 5,000 pesos and imprisonment of one to four years for persons who’re guilty of selling dog meat, to inhibit sales of meat from dogs that have died of rabies and thus curb the spread of rabies to people.
But eating dog meat is so popular in the Cordillera region. Animal Kingdom Foundation researcher Brando Gegway said that at least a dozen restaurants in Baguio City list dog meat on menus. Filipinos eat azucena, kilawing aso or kinilaw, raw dog flesh, skin and sometimes brain, marinated in vinegar and pepper or cooked a la sisig – dog’s meat and brain minced. Of course, they tend to get rabies from eating raw flesh from stray, rabid dogs, …
To butcher dogs for kilawin, Filipinos hang a dog inverted, blowtorch the fur then cut the dog to small pieces and even remove the brain to serve. A sure-fire way to contract rabies is to eat the brain of a rabid dog…
