People in the animal welfare industry know Anna Cabrera as the executive director of the non-government organization Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS). Even without a law degree, she has been fighting for animal rights for years now.

But to further protect the welfare of these voiceless creatures, she decided to enter law school and aspired to become a member of the legal profession. She achieved this on December 13 after she passed the 2024 Bar Examinations chaired by Supreme Court Associate Justice Mario Lopez.

Anna was supposed to attend her youngest daughter’s birthday party in school, but she skipped that to await the results alone at home. Her husband was at work, while her eldest was at school too. She shared with Rappler that she preferred to wait for the list of passers all by herself because she was not confident enough she would pass. 

Even before and after the results, Anna shared with Rappler that she was crying the whole time. 

“On television, people could see me as a tough figure against animal cruelty. But passing the Bar was something that I’ve really wanted for a long time, so I can speak up for animals, so I can use my title in attending court hearings. So when I finally got it, I just cried the whole time,” Anna said in a mix of Filipino and English, during a Rappler Talk interview.

Speaking up for the voiceless

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated” — Anna has always believed in this famous quote from peace icon Mahatma Gandhi. 

In her decades of experience in PAWS, Anna saw a correlation between human and animal violence. In PAWS, they saw a trend in animal offenders: those capable of hurting helpless animals are also capable of violating the rights of their fellow humans, too. 

“There are studies that show that there is a link between animal cruelty and human violence…. So if we care about peace, having a peaceful society, then we should care about speaking up for those who can’t speak for themselves. And these are the animals. These are the most helpless,” Anna told Rappler. “They don’t have any words, any voice.”

Anna said her goal as an animal activist is to make people understand that animal rights are important too — that human welfare is also connected with animal welfare. With this belief, she said they continue to file complaints against animal rights offenders. Even if at times, the situation is hard because of unwillingness to cooperate from witnesses, or lack of evidence, they still try to win their case. 

Anna said PAWS believes that their little wins always matter as these would encourage more people to care about animal rights. Even in times that they don’t win their cases, they are still somehow successful in some ways: “We want to cause a chilling effect to animal rights offenders that we file complaints because we want them to realize that there are consequences to hurting animals.”

Now that she is a lawyer, Anna said she aims to push for a better implementation of the animal welfare act and focus on pet neglect cases, since it’s difficult to convict people due to pet neglect, as compared to cruelty, according to her. 

“Secondly, we want to go after people who get our wildlife and keep them in zoos and these zoos are not registered at all and they’re making money out of these wild animals. For entertainment, they shouldn’t be in captivity,” Anna added. 

In law school, Anna did not only gain friends who are passionate about law — she also met people who are kind to animals, too, and oppose animal cruelty: “I’ve seen these excellent young women. They’re also very angry at cruelty and they want to make a difference. So we would want to put up an animal legal defense team that will really fight for animals’ right to be treated, the animals’ rights to be treated humanely. And we want to do this soon.”

Doubts at first

Anna has decades of experience in bringing animal abusers to court. As executive director of PAWS, she and her team coordinate with the victims of animal abuse and assist owners in exacting accountability from perpetrators, like in the case of golden retriever Killua, who was killed by a village watcher in Camarines Sur. 

But despite knowing the process of how the justice system works in the country, Anna could not directly represent the animals in court as she was not a lawyer. PAWS only taps volunteer counsels to assist them in filing suits. 

During a dinner with their volunteer lawyers, the wife of one of the counsels coaxed Anna to join her in taking the University of the Philippines Law Aptitude Examination (UPLAE), the entrance exam to the UP College of Law. Anna had doubts since she was in her late 40s at the time, but she was successfully persuaded by her colleague. 

In the end, Anna passed the exam, but her acquaintance did not. Since she will be alone in the journey, she said she thought of not pursuing advanced studies anymore.

“But she told me, ‘It’s hard to enter UP Law so maybe try even for just a year.’ So I went and took law for one year,” Anna said. Aside from her own reluctance, even Anna’s friends talked her out of law school. A few days before learning that she passed the UPLAE, her youngest daughter, who was three years old at the time, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. 

“So I was very conflicted and I really contemplated my decision. I discussed it with my husband and really, I’m very grateful to my husband that he also supported me and my law school journey,” she said.

But at the end of the day, Anna has a deeper reason why she wanted to become a lawyer for animals. She shared with Rappler that she had an unforgettable experience during a hearing for an animal cruelty case, where the magistrate told the parties to just settle the issue through payment. The judge even asked for the amount of the dog during trial. 

This triggered Anna, so she raised her hand and lectured the courtroom about the animal welfare act. However, she was told that she cannot freely speak in a courtroom since she is not a legal counsel.

“So it was at that very moment that I said that I hoped I chose to be a lawyer back then. I wish I was a lawyer,” she said. 

‘Tita Anna’ and her road to the Bar

In law school, Anna’s main opponent was herself — her inner saboteur and imposter syndrome — which made her doubt herself. She said she got intimidated by her classmates since she was surrounded by really competent people, aside from her age gap with them. Since she took night classes, Anna spent the six years of her life rushing to the UP College of Law after work. Her class would end at 9 pm, but she would spend the rest of the night preparing for the next class the other day.

Things got worse when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. She had a hard time adjusting to the online set-up since she was not a digital native. At first, she did not even know how to operate telecommunications applications and software.

“It’s difficult when you have a special child because sometimes, during my online classes, my daughter would have a meltdown. So there were times that I would suddenly disappear from the Zoom class because it was really, you know, a family situation,” Anna explained. 

Anna survived law school with combined help from her family, classmates, and colleagues from PAWS. She was “Tita Anna” to her classmates, but her younger colleagues taught her how to navigate her complicated situation. Anna said her colleagues taught her to use gadgets to make reading and reviewing easier, among other practical things that older generations can learn from the younger ones. 

“I found in UP Law, kind, compassionate, blockmates, and all of them are working students, too. And then I was able to find a really good support system. So I’m very thankful to the UP Portia Sorority. They really helped in my Bar review and everything all the way in my law school journey.”

Her family was understanding, too, and accepted that in her duration in law school, they would only see each other on weekends. They also found trustworthy personnel for their home that helped them manage the complicated situation. Even Anna’s colleagues in PAWS took some extra work when she was in law school due to the demands of her academic requirements. 

“So I really did this, one, for the animals, and second for all the people who supported me,” she added. 

PAWSsion for animals

Anna grew up in a neighborhood in Sampaloc, Manila, where kittens were maltreated and were considered lowly. At a very young age, she has always helped animals in her own capacity, such as by providing food to powerless animals needing care. 

She brought this care for animals and anger against cruelty even when she grew older. When she finished her undergraduate degree from the University of Santo Tomas, she first worked as a loan officer for a major bank. While working, she started volunteering for PAWS in 1997. She became full-time with the NGO in 2006, then became the executive director in 2012. 

PAWS founder, the late Nita “Tata” Hontiveros Lichauco, was Anna’s mentor. The late “Tata,” the aunt of Senator Risa Hontiveros, even encouraged Anna to pursue law, telling her to “do it for the adventure.” The two of them, and the rest of PAWS, successfully lobbied for the passage of the animal welfare act, and were even present during the signing of the law in Malacañang. 

Even on her journey to lawyering, Anna took inspiration from Tata as they both did not care about their age when they reached for their dreams. Anna said Tata led PAWS at an old age, while she became a lawyer at 51. 

“One thing that society doesn’t speak a lot about is ageism. I think we should do away with that kind of thinking. I think we should encourage older people. I think with older people, we should get them into more things that we need [to] change in society because they have the experience,” she said. 

“There are no small advocacies, especially if you have a big heart…. Follow your heart and you can never go wrong, and don’t listen to them when they say that it’s too late, you’ll not make it. Because if your heart is really into it, I think the universe conspires to make it real, as it was for me.” – Rappler.com

Some quotes were translated into English for brevity.