"It will take a stronger law to prevent animal cruelty."
Senator Grace Poe said this on Friday, March 28, following the separate incidents of dog killings in broad daylight which she said is a "cause for outrage".
The recent killing of a stray dog named "Tiger" in Subic quickly earned the ire of netizens after videos of photos of the bloodied dog before dying went viral.
According to the Facebook post of Raquel Tarnate, the dog was stabbed in a public market by a meat vendor in Subic. Her video showed Tiger struggling to walk whilst its guts hang from its stomach. Reports stated that the stray dog snagged a piece of meat from the vendor.
"We have an Animal Welfare law that protects all animals, owned or strays, against cruelty and abuse," Poe said in a statement.
"Ignorance of the law is not an excuse to beat or stab dogs to death, or to commit brutal acts," she added.
She stressed that animal welfare is everyone's responsibility, but greater on the part of the government endowed with authority and resources to guarantee that laws are being implemented to the letter.
"Local government units and concerned agencies should consider conducting an information drive to see to it that their constituents are made aware of pertinent laws on animal welfare," she added.
With or without videos or the social media, speedy response to reports and incidents of animal cruelty is a must to save them and to catch the perpetrators.
"We will be relentless in pushing for our bill to give more fangs to the Animal Welfare law to deter abusers," she said.
Poe said that the bill has passed on second reading in the Senate and we are confident it will hurdle the third and final reading when sessions resume.
She called animal-lover counterparts in the House of Representatives to hear and pass the measure