Man nabbed, woman sorry for poor ‘Cholo’

Smoke wafting from a Makati City neighborhood led authorities to the slaughter of a dog that ended up as appetizer in a drinking session.

Bonifacio Marinas, 37, a construction worker, was arrested on Tuesday at his Barangay (village) Cembo residence for alleged violation of the Animal Welfare Act and the Anti-Rabies Act. He faces six months to two years in jail if found guilty.

Dr. Sammy Santos, a consultant for the advocacy group Network for Animals, said Marinas was detained at the police headquarters following his inquest in the City Prosecutor’s Office on Wednesday.

Around 2 p.m. Tuesday, members of the Makati Public Safety Department (Mapsa) came to Marinas’s house on a tip that he and two other men had killed a four-month-old male mongrel, which he bought for P300.

The tipster was the woman who earlier sold the dog thinking that Marinas and his friends would use the animal to guard a farm in Batangas province.

“I thought the dog would be in good hands. I would not have sold him had I known that they would just cook him,” Beverly April Gonzales said, referring to the dog her family had called “Cholo.”

Gonzales said she became suspicious when she saw smoke coming from Marinas’s house and picked up the smell of burnt fur. She then rushed to the suspect’s house to demand the dog back.

“But they showed me the dog with its throat already slit,” she said.