Crux

WAITING for the veterinarian to arrive for Saturday appointments reminds the husband and I of the times we waited with other parents for our sons to be dismissed from pre-school. 

To be first in the queue, we are early birds and end up chatting with other early birds. Just as I once learned tips from using bright hues for body stamps (blue is cool; yellow is sissy) to holding 10-minute sanity breaks for student and parent to survive supervised homework, I rediscover the Filipino as Fur Parent during the intervals preceding vaccination, spaying/neutering, check-ups, and other interactions with the vet. 

From these myriad waiting lessons is a standout: people’s usual reaction to the “asong Pinoy” (or “aspin,” meaning “mongrel”) we have brought to the vet’s clinic. “Hindi ‘yan aspin; may lahi ‘yan.” 

The intent of the speaker seems to be to compliment our dog or cat (“pusang Pinoy” or “puspin”) by observing that it looks far from being a “pure native” and shows traces of a foreign breed, implying a better bloodline. 

“Lahi” in Filipino refers to race. We take the compliment as a backhanded one, a distressing expression of the deeply ingrained bias disparaging local dogs as “askal (“asong kalye (street dog)” or “asong gala (strays)”. 

Too often, “stray” dogs and cats are blameless victims of families that move away and leave behind their pets, without a thought for the animals’ sustenance and anxiety from abandonment or dislocation. 

These “strays” are not only rendered homeless; their offspring are also doomed by human cruelty. Unspayed females mate with uncastrated males and result in unwanted litters.

The overriding motivation behind our, so far, five cat spayings and neutering of a sire or a male aspin is a commitment to end this vicious cycle of irresponsibly allowing dogs and cats to uncontrollably breed and then blaming the animals for threatening public safety and health.

Breaking this cycle means not just planning and budgeting for expenses in engaging a private veterinarian but also involvement in ensuring the animal safely fasts for at least eight hours before surgery and administering medicine for 7-10 days to hasten the healing. 

The crux of the matter in responsible pet ownership is reversing the racist mentality that only the more expensive imported breeds of dogs and cats deserve veterinarian care. 

After a fellow fur parent pleasantly asked me if we had intentionally cut off the tail of our puppies (born stumpless like their aspin sire and dam), the husband and I reinforce our belief that, whether puspin or aspin, the Pinoy deserves our best, not the scraping of the dregs of humanity.

(mayette.tabada@gmail.com/ 09173226131)

* First published in SunStar Cebu’s November 21, 2021 issue of the Sunday editorial-page column, “Matamata”

Waiting for vax

 

I AM in the pale. In numbers, I belong to the 87 percent of the country’s population that have not been vaccinated against coronavirus disease (Covid-19), by choice or not.

It is the latter in our case. The husband and I have registered when the local government units in Luzon where we live and work made the call for A3 and A4 groups, prioritized due to underlying health conditions and working in the public, private, and informal sectors.

Our latest registration was in the Parañaque website, open also to non-residents. The government launched a “mega vaccination site” at the Nayong Pilipino, with eight “ambulatory vaccination centers and 30 drive-thru booths” and the capacity to inoculate “at least 15,000 persons a day”.

Currently, the husband and I still belong to the 96,731,254 Filipinos that have not received even one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.

As of Aug. 9, the country’s population is 111,185,350, according to the United Nations. Only 11 percent of Filipinos are fully vaccinated while 1.9 percent have at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, based on the ourworldindata.org.

Vaccine equity has to leap out from public health jargon into reality because the supply of vaccines is insufficient to meet the demand.

In our part of Cavite, the administration of the second dose of Covid-19 vaccines was delayed for weeks and has just been resumed. Prioritized are the A2 and A3 groups, who are elderly, have comorbidities, or are both.

Yet, the A4 (frontline economic workers) and A5 (indigent) groups are also vulnerable. Many Calabarzon residents commute to and fro Metro Manila for work, putting them daily at risk.

When the poor get sick, they rarely rush to hospitals. “Coronavirus inequality,” to borrow the phrase used in a “Washington Post” article, is the reality that those with less in life fear more a lockdown than disease.

The former means hunger, a protracted dying. Covid-19 works quickly on people with poor nutrition and health and little or no resources for work from home, physical distancing, isolation, and hospitalization.

I will accept any vaccine but first, it must be available.

I will wait for a vax appointment, which every government website I have registered in promises to send but has yet to fulfill.

Walking into a congested vaccination center without an appointment is a sure ticket to the Delta class.  

As part of the walking unvaccinated, I pose a potential threat to others, including the vaccinated. A nearby vax center has closed for “disinfection”.  Vaccinators are getting exhausted, infected, or both.

Yet, the deafening call to “get vaccinated” lacks this antecedent message: “make vaccines available”.  Please.