On playing favorites

A note from the editor

Is it just me, or is it hard to not pick a favorite?

I’ve been binging on Billie Eilish’s songs recently and I already knew what my favorite track was even before I finished her entire album. Bad Guy – that’s the song I like the most – has been the official soundtrack of my life these past months (it says the real “bad guys” aren’t the tough, like-it-really-rough men, but the girls who do what they want.)

I have a favorite shirt, a favorite set of earphones, and even a favorite personal trainer. As much as I want to deny it, I also have a favorite among my feline babies, even if I love them all very much and would drop everything if any of them needed me.

National Pet Week falls on the first week of May and I bet you’re already thinking of how to celebrate it with your favorite animals. It’s alright – it’s a matter of preference – and as long as we do no harm to the others that don’t quite make it to our list of faves, then we can just blame our favoritism on our inherent, impossible-to-ignore biases.

Just to be clear, having a favorite animal isn’t the same as having selective empathy. We can play favorites all we want and still do no harm. However, with selective empathy, we can choose to harm one animal while showing compassion for another.

It breaks our hearts to see dolphins butchered every year in Japan, their blood staining the ocean red. However, we have no second thoughts consuming other aquatic life, such as the now-endangered tawilis. The tawilis is one of the marine creatures who have adapted to freshwater life in Taal Lake, as Gregg Yan mentions in The Wild Side.

We dote over our companion animals, yet we seem to turn a blind eye to other mammals. The Bornean orangutans, whose numbers have dropped to around 70,000 because of the palm oil industry, are barely clinging to existence, something Nate Martinez writes about in this issue.

Speaking of selective empathy, reptiles are especially prone to being ignored, feared, or outright killed. The Philippine sailfin lizard, for instance, is now at risk of extinction, and Paul Catiang gives us a closer look at what’s going on.

One thing I find odd is how we mistreat creatures with whom we already have a connection. We often go to the zoo to look at wild animals in captivity, not realizing that keeping them in cages supports an industry that deprives them of their freedom. The mental health issues they suffer behind cages is called zoochosis, which Roxanne Libatique discusses in detail.

Favoritism can be harmful, especially if it leads to injustice. Choosing purebreds over domestic cats and dogs is one example. While it’s okay if we prefer cats over dogs, it would be nice if we looked at animals as fellow earthlings instead of mere objects – this calibrates our moral compass, reminding us that while picking a favorite may seem harmless, objectifying them can lead to their suffering and death.

Go ahead; give your favorite animal a hug! Just keep in mind that those whom we don’t consider our “pets” are also capable of joy and pain.

In any case, I hope Animal Scene remains one of your favorite magazines. Happy reading!