The Gawad Tsanselor Para sa Nakakatanging Lingkod Komunidad is one of the highest awards of the University of the Philippines Diliman awarded to individuals, groups, or organizations that improve communities through meaningful community service
Winning the Gawad Tsanselor Award is the greatest milestone, if not the culmination of Prof. Khrysta Imperial Rara’s fight for the rights and welfare of the UP campus animals. She founded the Friends of Campus Animals with a few friends in the university — fighting the impounding of dogs by the Pound, advocating humane campus animal management, saving dogs and cats during the pandemic, organizing Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return (TNVR) operations with the cooperation of animal welfare groups and veterinarians of different organizations as well as the UPD administration, giving lectures and seminars on how best to manage campus animals in dorms and school buildings. To make the campus animals more visible, in a good way, to the community, Prof. Rara initiated the Dog Pack Walk, which kicked off the Lantern Parade in 2015, which became an annual tradition. Events like the UPAW Fair and Animal Fashion shows as well as the regular Saturday dog pack walks keep both animals and humans in good spirit.
In February 2019, then Chancellor Michael Tan publicly announced the new ESA program and introduced Kotton and Tisay, as UP’s first ESAs. In 2020, Prof. Rara proposed the SAGIP Search and Rescue K9 training of UP campus dogs. The training stretched for two years.
Chancellor Tan established the Balai Kaibigan which became the venue for the TNVR operations. The cats and dogs who were not able to return to their home bases were housed there and put up for adoption. Students were also welcome to visit the ESA cats and dogs and even walk the dogs around the vicinity.
When the winds of change blew against the campus animals, the projects like the SAGIP were stopped. Even the food for the animals came to a halt, which made FOCA exert more effort in soliciting for food and medicines for the animals. When the Balai was scheduled to be closed down, Prof. Rara and the FOCA friends were in a frenzy to find homes for the remaining 40 cats and dogs, but still maintain their rigorous adoption screening process. Fortunately, all the animals were rehomed, with 9 cats and 4 dogs going to the Animal Kingdom Foundation (AKF) shelter in Tarlac.
To save the ESA Program, six dogs were taken in by OVCSA in December 2023. The ESA program was re-launched in January 2024 at The Third Space, a venue where students can study, relax, eat, socialize and play with the UP and FOCA ESAs. FOCA trained the student assistants and the dogs for ESA work.
When FOCA UP was founded in 2015, dogs were not allowed to walk in the #UPOval. In 2026, FOCA won the #GawadTsanselor Award and the dogs were allowed to go up the stage with the Chancellor!!! A whole lot happened in 11 years of FOCA’s advocacy for campus animals’ rights and welfare — from kicking off the annual Lantern Parade, the Establishment of the Balai Kaibigan, the ESA Training; the SAGIP Search & Rescue Training; the TNVR operations; the Impounding of Campus dogs by the QC Pound, the scrapping of the Search & Rescue project, the closure of Balai Kaibigan, the re-launching of the ESA program, etc.
A long road for FOCA’s fight for animal welfare in campuses!
Postprandial Musings, 2.0 