Animal welfare advocates are  a special breed of people. Rescues are a daily occurrence,  they will move mountains to increase awareness about spay-neuter and the importance of being kind to animals. They are also  a marginalized group – often their advocacies are relegated to the bottom of the pile by government officials who do not think animal welfare issues deserve  much attention.  

It was such a group that gathered for the first time at Discovery Suites in Ortigas on October 3 2011. Organized by the three leading animal welfare groups in the country as part of celebration of World Animal Day or WAD, Animal Kingdom Foundation (AKF), Compassion and Responsibility for Animals (CARA) and PAWS, the conference was dubbed as “Philippine Animal Advocates Conference for Transformation” or PAACT.

Tessa Salazar Philippine Daily Inquirer

Time is running out on the stranded pets and livestock clinging to dear life in the still flooded areas of Bulacan, Pampanga and Nueva Ecija provinces. Their human masters have either abandoned them and gone to evacuation centers, or cannot tend to them for lack of supplies.

The Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), Animal Kingdom Foundation (AKF) and Humane Society International (HSI) observed during an inspection of the worst-hit areas on Oct. 2 that a large number of animals remained stranded on the roofs of houses in Calumpit, Bulacan.

PAWS executive director Anna Hashim Cabrera said roughly 30 dogs and cats and 80 farm animals (chickens, goats, cows and turkeys) were seen during the Sunday inspection led by Luis Buenaflor of AKF.