LA TRINIDAD, Benguet -- Dog lovers will love it, but dog eaters and restaurant owners here are up in arms against it. A law enacted last week banning the sale of dog meat in restaurants across the country has stirred a hornet's nest in this province.

It's because dog meat is Benguet's -- and the region's -- most esteemed delicacy. Dog meat goes well with a bottle of bilog or a case of beer. The passion for dog meat in the province is such that a provincial resolution ordering all restaurants in La Trinidad in 1996 to serve vegetable dishes only did not prosper. "Nothing happened to it, because of the [people's] love for dog meat," said Mike Esteban, an aide of former Benguet Gov. Raul Molintas. "It's dog meat that they want."

Comiles Restaurant, one of the oldest in this town, is the most well known for dog meat. At regular days, Comiles butchers five to seven dogs a day. "We serve no other meat except dog," said Carmen Comiles Beray, whose mother set up the place in the 1950s to feed and send her nine children to school. Now, the new law gives Mrs. Beray a sense of disquiet. "We have no other business," Mrs. Beray said when asked to comment on how the law will affect the family. "I do not know what we will do now." She recalled a time when they tried to serve pork, beef and pinikpikan [burned chicken]. The new dishes did not fare well with the regular patrons who asked them to go back to dog meat. Even at the height of the rabies scare a few years ago, Mrs. Beray said, the demand for dog meat did not decline.

In the 80s, Ferdinand Marcos banned the sale of dog meat, but the restaurant owners weathered it, thanks to Gov. Ben Palispis, who lobbied for the lifting of the ban. Now her family prays that Governor Molintas and other provincial officials will lobby for the amendment or repeal of Republic Act 8385 or the Animal Welfare Act, as did Palispis in his time. "We hope that our officials will make the move to lift the ban," Mrs. Beray said.

courtesy of The Ville
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