PAWS deplores poor info dissemination of Animal Welfare Act

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) on Monday said that the order from the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) General Services for their janitors to catch stray cats – without the janitors having proper training – was proof of the ineffective dissemination of the Animal Welfare Act.

“This shows that the Animal Welfare Division has not succeeded in effectively disseminating information about the Animal Welfare Act in its 14 years of existence,” said Anna Cabrera, executive director of PAWS, in a text message to Inquirer.net.

“Government departments themselves are unaware of how they should humanely handle the stray cat problem,” she added.

Cabrera told Inquirer.net that she called Engineer Malou Olitoquit, head of General services Division of the DOJ, and found out that the DOJ was not aware that the janitors needed to have authorization from the City Veterinarian’s Office, BAI-AWD and training on humane catching before they could start seizing cats.

DOJ General Services on Friday gave marching orders to its janitorial services to capture stray cats in their headquarters in Manila. As of Friday, two stray cats were caught and thrown away while nine were being hunted.

Cabrera expressed disappointment over the DOJ order, saying “they think they can just assign this task to janitorial services like ‘taking out garbage’  without proper training on the humane catching of cats.”

Cabrera said that she hoped that Olitoquit would keep her word when she said that she would order  the janitors to stop catching the cats and would write to PAWS requesting for a seminar on how to humanely control stray cat population through the Trap Neuter and Return Method (TNR).

PAWS has offered the seminars for free. Fat Reyes