By Emmanuel T. Erediano
Variety News Staff

THE Department of Land and Natural Resources’ animal clinic complements, and does not compete with the private veterinary clinic, according to DLNR Secretary Ignacio Dela Cruz.
Dela Cruz said in an interview on Friday that their clinic is only open from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., every other Tuesday.
He said he does not think that the clinic is competing with Dr. Edgar Tudor’s Paradise Island Animal Clinic.
Dela Cruz said the DLNR clinic is for poor pet owners.
Although the number of pet owners coming to the As Perdido clinic is increasing, he said many of them end up going to Paradise Animal Clinic because they do not want to wait in line due to work commitments or important appointments.
During the last DLNR clinic day, seven of the 38 clients who registered their pets for treatment left to avoid the long wait in line.
According to Dela Cruz, there are services that DLNR’s animal clinic cannot provide to pets, so they refer pet owners to the private veterinarian.
“So (Tudor) should be happy because the DLNR animal clinic is actually complementing his clinic,” Dela Cruz said.
But Tudor said he is losing business because many of his clients are now going to the DLNR clinic.
He has asked DLNR to close the As Perdido clinic.
They talked about this in 2002, according to Tudor, adding that Dela Cruz promised him he would close the As Perdido clinic as soon as it becomes a problem to the private clinic.
Tudor said his clinic costs him $1,000 in daily overhead expenses.
In an e-mail yesterday, he said “being poor is (just) a state of mind for a lot of individuals, and it has nothing to do with how much money someone has.”
He said sometimes, “the poorest in mind and spirit are those with the most money.”
This, he added, “makes it very difficult to offer special services for ‘the poor’, since everyone claims to be. And I’m not kidding about this or trying to be evasive; it is a very hard target to tie down. It may be that a person is poor and he or she gets low-cost care, but what kind of care? Do we offer euthanasia if the dog has parvo virus because the owner didn’t get the puppy vaccinated? Or do we treat the puppy for several hundred dollars because the owner is crying and wants me to save their pet?”