Humane

More and more research studies have conclusively shown that animals, including those raised for food, are intelligent, sentient beings that can feel pain and fear. Take note of The Someone Project, a campaign in the United States that portrays pigs, chickens, cows and other farm animals as being more intelligent and having more emotions than previously thought. “What it boils down to is people don’t know farm animals the way they know dogs or cats,” the Someone Project’s Bruce Friedrich said. “We’re a nation of animal lovers and yet the animals we encounter most frequently are the animals we pay people to kill so we can eat them.”

This is something that Filipinos should come to terms with as well. We have been witness to the amazing behavior of the heroic dog Kabang and the resilient cat Pinay, and we consider these animals to be more emotionally similar to humans and therefore superior to livestock such as the carabao, a symbol of the Filipino’s everyday struggle and a common sight in many a rice field. We are a nation that is still fighting to curb the horrific trade in dog meat, the equally horrific dog fights put up for betting, and the general neglect and cruelty that ignorant and uncaring people exhibit toward household pets.

But the animals raised for food deserve better treatment as well. Think of the agony of pigs and chickens while cramped in a truck filled to bursting and bound for the slaughterhouse (like Jews on the way to their systemic extermination). Last year, the Department of Agriculture allocated some P139 million for the improvement of the conditions of slaughterhouses and the construction of new ones. “This will address the sanitation concerns of meat processors,” National Meat Inspection Service director Minda Marantan said. That move was intended to ensure the cleanliness of the meat taken from the abattoirs and brought to the markets. Ideally, the next step should be to prevent the suffering of the animals before being butchered.

“Pigs are known to dream, recognize their own names, learn tricks, like sitting for a treat, and lead social lives of a complexity previously observed only in primates,” the group called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) said in its website. “Like humans, pigs enjoy listening to music, playing with soccer balls, and getting massages.” Did we not learn anything from E.B. White’s novel “Charlotte’s Web,” or “Babe,” the blockbuster movie based on Dick King-Smith’s pigcentric book, “The Sheep-Pig”?

Animal rights activists are correct to emphasize the findings of research studies on animal behavior, not so much to demand a radical and immediate switch to vegetarianism as to at least bring about humane treatment of animals. Peta Asia-Pacific is not only calling on President Aquino—with the help of Paul McCartney and like-minded others—to release the lonely elephant Mali to a sanctuary in Thailand, but also on the general public to make healthier, alternative food choices. That’s probably why the Luntiang Lunes (Meatless Monday) campaign has found resonance in schools and in individuals when it called on Filipinos to skip meat for a day for both health and climate-change reasons. Eating only vegetables one day a week is “an action that will affect the planet and public health,” according to Luntiang Lunes chair Dr. Custer Deocaris. While there is merit in choosing to go meatless for health considerations (another story in itself, especially for the carnivores among us), one needs to consider the plight of these animals before they reach our dining tables.

This means the humane raising of cows, pigs and chickens, and a general overhaul of the system of pig, poultry and cow farms where the animals are crammed in coops and cages, bombarded with growth hormones and such, and generally lead miserable lives before they are taken to the slaughterhouses.

It behooves humankind, as supposedly civilized and evolved creatures, to recognize the possibility that other forms of life are similarly aware and thus deserving of respect. “You have to have ideological blindness to think these animals are not intelligent,” said American professor Bernard Rollin, an expert in philosophy and animals. “I hope we go back to an agriculture that works more with the animals’ biological and psychological needs and nature rather than against them.”