A little past five on a quiet summer morning Sunday in Camarines Sur town of Bato, three-year-old golden retriever “Killua” fatefully leaped from the roof of a house onto the street below.
Hours later, anxious dog owner Vina Rachelle Arazas found the missing Killua beaten dead, stuffed inside a jute sack.
But unlike other discoveries of the gruesome death of a loved pet, Ms. Arazas uploaded video footage of her figuring in an exchange with a visibly irritated Anthony Solares, who, in the course of their conversation, openly admitted to killing the dog. He then pulled out a sack containing the dog’s bloodied remains.
Solares claimed his dastardly deed was an act of self-defense, insisting that Killua had bitten him and another person.
Mere hours after Ms. Arazas uploaded the video of the brutal end of her pet on social media, the response was both swift and unprecedented.
Before last Monday ended, Killua’s death had ignited a huge fireball, a public outrage that prompted an exceptional collective call for justice for the dead dog.
Four days later, as I write this, the public conflagration over Killua still showed no signs of dying out.
Loud cries for justice from dog lovers were as lusty as ever, and they were now joined by animal rights activists, celebrities, and even a senator.
“This news is extremely heartbreaking,” posted singer Sarah Geronimo on her X page. “Walang kalaban-laban yung aso (the dog hadn’t a chance).”
Geronimo was referring to another CCTV footage uploaded by Arazas on Monday showing a man, allegedly Solares, chasing Killua outside Arazas’ house. The man was shown hitting the dog with what he admitted later in a news video was a piece of wood.
Various news reports said Solares was Arazas’s neighbor and is supposedly a barangay tanod (village watchman) in Bato town, a municipality of some 53,000 souls located near Lake Bato, which is famed for its “sinarapan,” the world’s smallest commercially harvested fish.
In a later interview with a TV reporter, a visibly unremorseful Solares looked straight into the camera and again justified his assault, alleging at one point that he mauled the dog because the dog threatened a child of his.
His candid interview and claims didn’t sit well with those who had watched it.
“Golden retrievers are the safest dogs to be with kids,” scoffed TV host and known animal lover Kim Atienza, who acidly added, “You broke the law; you will go to jail, sir.”
As the massive public outcry and disgust boiled over, local police vowed a serious investigation and a possible case.
“We are assisting the complainant. I personally want to file a case; that’s why I’m assisting. The video is a big help because you can see there that the suspect looks like he’s admitting why he did it,” Bato Municipal Police chief, Major Ronaldo P. Brugada, told a news reporter.
But other than the serious allegations against Solares, a larger, darker cloud gathered too, adding another layer of urgency to protesters’ calls for justice for Killua’s death.
The dark cloud came in an insinuation by an anonymous user on X regarding Bato town’s chronic culinary underbelly. An underbelly that promptly raised the specter of the one word dreaded by any true dog lover: “asocena.”
“Asocena,” says historian Ian D. Christopher B. Alfonso, “is a Filipino portmanteau combining the Austronesian word for dog, aso, and the Spanish word cena or dinner. (Alfonso’s hefty book “Dogs in Philippine History” is by far the best reference on dogs in this country).
Starkly, “asocena” looms large in Killua’s story, in the fact that Killua was surreptitiously stuffed into a “sako” which, in provincial lore, only meant the dog was on its way to the cauldron and onto the “pulutan” plate.
Killua’s death is now not only an enduring symbol in the fight against animal cruelty but also about something else entirely — about certain gothic aspects of Filipino culture that refuse to die out.
