06/12/2003

Ethnic tribes all over the world devour insects as a source of protein (such primitive wisdom!) including green ants. We have tasted ants coated in chocolate, cricketts (kamaro) in Pampanga, and scorpions toasted crisp and serve on toast at a food festival at the Mandarin Oriental.

During a trip to South Africa, we sampled, with tremulous reluctance, “wild game” like crocodile’s tail, stew of ostrich, wild boar, elephant’s paw, rabbit or other “catch of the day”. It is not an experience we wish to go back to.

Luckily, these are not food for everyday consumption, but there are a few restaurants in the country that actually specialize in this forbidden cuisine.

Wilma Redler, an expatriate residing in the Philippines and founder of the Feathered Friends Foundation, pointed out to me that there are laws protecting our wildlife such as Republic Act 9147, otherwise known as “Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act.”

RA 9147 specifically places under government protection all endangered species of flora and fauna and identifies so–called critical habitats of threatened species. The law also provides conditions for the preservation of such habitats, a ban on the harvest and transport of endangered species for their protection and preservation, and captive breeding in wild farms, etc.

There are also strict provisions forbidding the sale and export of byproducts and derivatives extracted from wildlife for, for instance, medicine or other purposes.

Tasked with the implementation of RA 9147 is the Department of Environment and Natural Resources currently headed by DENR Sec. Elisea G. Gozun.

Alas, as Wilma Redler soon discovered, folks out there in the DENR are not aware of or interest in RA 9147.

Last August 26, she wrote a concerned letter to the DENR Region 3 office about an eatery featured in a Studio 23 newscast called Gloria’s Fastfood, located somewhere between Subic and Bataan.

According to Wilma, Gloria’s Fastfood was serving an exotic menu of turtle (pagong) soup, monitor lizard (bayawak), python (sawa), wild pig (baboy damo), deer (usa), and birds of the field such as grass finches (maya).

The response to her complaint at the DENR was typical — “they aren’t killing many” ... “we didn’t know”. Promises were made to “investigate” and then nothing more was heard about the matter.

The delay in positive action is causing Wilma plenty of concern because as she noted, “When they’re dead , they’re dead. You can’t bring them back,” referring to the wild animals, birds and reptiles being devoured under the guise of “exotica” or “erotica.”

In her letter to Leo Katigbak, ABS -CBN vice president, regarding the Studio 23 feature on Gloria’s Fastfood, she points out that the hunters that supply the restaurant are doing “illegal acts.”

She wrote: “Your station claims to be environment–friendly. But with what you’re doing now, it’s not. It looks like to me that you’re just talking and talking but not acting.”

Considering too that World Wildlife Foundation has long been campaigning against the slaughter of wild creatures by asking viewers not to purchase these things ... “when the buying stops, the killing can too.”

I know of another restaurant in Laguna which serves exotic cuisine. It even displays an oversized sawa at its entrance (presuming they haven’t eaten it yet). From what I am told, however, regular customers usually stick to the regular pica pica of chicharon bituka to go with their beer. A bestseller in fact is their halo halo and other desserts.

Thank goodness, Filipinos in general are not that adventurous in their eating habits. They’ll still go for their lechon, kare kare, adobo, sinigang, pancit, etc.

What Wilma and friends should take a closer look at are the private zoos where the animals are kept in small cages and cruelly treated. There’s one in Tagaytay that’s been drawing crowds. But from what we hear, the animals look emaciated and unhappy.

The zoo in Corregidor is another example of man’s cruelty to animals which are slowly starving to death. I do know that Wilma has been trying to get the animals transfered to a better facility in Cavite or Laguna but has, so far, been knocking heads with bureaucracy because the zoo is owned by the government.

If you have an exotic animal or bird as a pet in your domicile, you should know that your home is no place for them. Bring them to a zoo where they will be better taken care of.

Doesn’t anybody care?

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