Brutal dog killing in Philippines sparks outrage, calls to strengthen animal welfare law

The killing of a pet dog in the northern Philippines has ignited widespread outrage and reopened debate on the country’s weak animal welfare protections after disturbing footage of the incident went viral online.\nThe video shows an American Bully named Axle being beaten with a wooden plank in the remote town of Sadanga in Mountain Province, prompting an outpouring of grief from animal lovers and a wave of calls for authorities to strengthen enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act.\nClosed-circuit television images captured the dog whimpering and trying to escape as a man chased and struck it repeatedly, before it later died from its injuries.\nThe attack occurred on December 4 and was first posted on YouTube, but reposts on TikTok and Facebook helped the footage spread rapidly, drawing thousands of views within hours.\n\nWithin days, #JusticeForAxle posts from animal welfare groups and local news pages were ricocheting across social media, helping turn the case into a national news story.\nScreenshots later circulated of Sadanga’s local government asking an online media outlet to remove the video, arguing that the material was “causing unnecessary distress”.\nInitial reports naming the assailant as a sitting town councillor added to public outrage, but municipal officials issued a clarification after fact checking the claim.\n“We express our unequivocal condemnation of the senseless killing of the American Bully known as Axle,” the Sadanga government said in a statement on Tuesday. “We confirm that a filing of a case is ongoing against the perpetrator, who is a driver of the local government unit.”\nClaims that Axle’s owners had accepted a settlement circulated online, prompting some users to urge the public to “move on” from the incident.\nAnimal welfare groups rejected such appeals, stressing that any monetary settlement did not extinguish criminal liability under the Animal Welfare Act, which prescribes up to two years’ imprisonment and/or a fine of as much as 100,000 Philippine pesos (US$1,700) for killing an animal.\nThe Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) said that it was working on building a case for Axle, but told This Week in Asia that it was being “stonewalled” by village officials and the dog’s family, which the organisation speculated might be due to fear of retribution from others in the remote, tight-knit community.\n“CCTV footage on its own will not stand or be admissible in court unless its source is determined and its authenticity is established, including confirmation that it has not been altered,” PAWS said in a statement released on Tuesday.\n“We are not able to verify anything, as everything circulating online is information that has been passed on,” Anna Cabrera, a lawyer and the executive director of PAWS, told This Week in Asia.\nShe added that her group had sent two representatives on Thursday to speak to local officials, but village leaders declined to provide any information on the suspect and insisted that the killing was “part of their culture”.\nCabrera also said witnesses have refused to come forward. “They kept saying that part of their indigenous practice is that when a dog pees on a person, he should kill the dog.”\nSadanga mayor Robert Wanawan told GMA News that local superstition held that being urinated on by a dog brought misfortune or even death.\n“Perhaps in his anger, he was able to do that in front of many people,” he said of the man who killed Axle.\nCabrera noted, however, that such beliefs did not fall under the law’s exemptions, which permit the killing of a dog only as part of an approved ceremonial custom by a certified tribe.\n“It doesn’t belong under any of the six exceptions under the Animal Welfare Act. So the killing is illegal,” she said.\nCabrera added that any private settlement “does not extinguish criminal liability” as the offence was a public crime.\nThe Animal Kingdom Foundation urged Sadanga’s officials to enforce the law “with Axle … firmly in mind” and warned that settlements cannot override legal protections for “living, sentient beings”.\n“Sadanga is known for its strong traditions, unity, and sense of dignity. Upholding animal welfare does not diminish these cultural values but rather strengthens them. Protecting the voiceless is a reflection of moral leadership and cultural integrity,” the foundation added.\n\n\n‘A chilling effect’\nCabrera said PAWS intended to pursue a case to create a “chilling effect on future animal offenders”, adding that cruelty towards animals often intersected with broader patterns of violence.\n“In many cases we’ve seen, people who are violent to animals are also the troublemakers in their community … Violence is a cycle. A person who hits an animal is prone to hitting other people.”\n“So, animal welfare groups and humane societies protect our society from devolving into a violent one,” she said.\nCabrera said Axle’s death, like other cases PAWS had handled, highlighted the need to strengthen penalties under the Animal Welfare Act and make prosecutions more straightforward.\n“As a criminal act, the quantum of evidence needed for animal cruelty cases is proof beyond reasonable doubt. Sometimes it’s very difficult to prove this, particularly in cases such as neglect, which is defined as the failure to provide adequate care for an animal,” Cabrera said, adding that her group has seen several cases of neglect dismissed by the court.\nShe also urged courts to impose tougher penalties, pointing out that the law allows judges to choose either imprisonment or a fine of up to 100,000 pesos, and arguing that offenders should receive both.\nThe way the law was phrased had created loopholes, Cabrera said, with offenders sometimes receiving penalties far lower than what advocates believed reflected the gravity of the offence.\nShe cited the case of Killua, a golden retriever beaten to death last year, whose killer was found guilty but ordered to pay only a 1,000-peso penalty, plus 19,000 pesos in damages.\n“We didn’t expect that it would be taken in such a way that with a maximum of 100,000 pesos for killing a dog, that the judge would just go for 1,000 pesos. So we’re now trying to prevent that from happening again by imposing a minimum,” she said.\n