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Cats of BGC
@CatsBGCph on Instagram
CatsBGCph appears to be a semi-feral volunteer cat rescue, operating in the BGC (Bonifacio Global City) area of Taguig/Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines, SE Asia. They are frequently found on Instagram.
I'm a retired photographer from the USA, retired in BGC, Taguig, Philippines, SE Asia for some time now, after more than a decade of relief work (kids and cats) in Third World countries globally.
I was initially a corporate product photographer (and Federal US government agent, helicopter pilot, rescue-tugboat captain (321 rescues in the north Pacific), commercial diver, prominent magazine writer, creator of 81 websites, author of nine books, etc. etc.), but later, predominantly, a simple and happy cat photographer, working with several of the largest forever rescues in the western US. I have plenty of stories. Ask me about the county government, high on a local political power trip, who declared that since 30% of a resident rescued-cat population was suffering from rhino, all 500-800 cats must be put to death mercilessly, on one day, using county funds and facilities. It was beyond a slaughter; it was a massacre and I reported extensively on it and to this day it sticks in my craw like a bony salmon head.
As photographers are wont to do, we stroll and take pictures. Since cats were my forte', I often took pictures of cats, preferably street cats, as I prefer the photography of street people as well.
Noticing that BGC was running rampant with relatively healthy cats I began to inquire locally.
I was told that a group called CatsBGCph, often found on Instagram, was a player, locally, in cat rescue and care. Intrigued, I struck up a pleasant conversation with them on Instagram.
I love cats so much that I often tell people I'm lucky not to have the money of Gates or Musk, because I've have a homeless cat facility half the size of the state of Texas and I'd need constant and intensive therapy to keep me from turning into a crazy old cat lady and losing all my fortunes buying gourmet salmon by the trainload for the cats. Actually, I might just forgo the therapy and let it all rip.
I don't know who I spoke with at CatsBGCph on Instagram, but we discussed cats over the course of maybe a couple of months, maybe less, in a leisurely manner. My love of the little beasties was clear and their devotion to caring for them was also evident so it was a good match.
At one point it came up that I was a retired cat photographer (although we never retire, really), and I was asked to come along and shoot some of the cats at feeding times, hopefully capturing some good snaps that might entice people to adopt more.
This was right up my alley, as that's precisely what I'd been doing in the USA, but also with human orphans around the world, mostly in Third World countries in SE Asia and the eastern European old Soviet bloc rat holes, Romania, Ukraine, etc.
I informed whomsoever I was conversing with that I'd be delighted to come along and just see what I could do, all for fun and for the sake of the cats.
They said sure, let's set it up.
So I said when.
And then they went dark.
Now, sometimes things like this happen in life. Maybe someone dies, or maybe someone changes course in their life, they get sick. Maybe they even decide they don't like you anymore, though that's pretty-much always precipitated by some kind of disagreement, spat, or even innocent misunderstanding.
In virtually every case it will be clear what one's infraction might have been, and if one's not sure, one can always inquire with, for example, "Hey. I'm not receiving your replies anymore. Are you ok? Did I accidentally say something to offend you?"
There are any number of variations to that theme and that virtually always elicits SOME kind of response. It might be, hey, I've just been really busy lately. Or, maybe, I've been sick, sorry. Or, yeah, you said SUCH AND SUCH AND IT REALLY INSULTED ME; WHY DID YOU SAY THAT?
Those are good, constructive replies. You can do something with those. You can try your best to straighten things out, to clarify, to apologize even if you don't feel one is needed or warranted. Those are responses that leave doors open. Maybe those doors will slam shut later, but usually there will be some kind of rationale, even if it appears twisted or in error. At least you can maybe follow the logic of it.
You might get a reply that says, "You know, I've realized that I just plain hate your guts. Your offer to help us with cat photography after we asked you to do that, was totally out of line, and we hate you and we never want to hear from you again."
Of course that would be nuts, but of course there's plenty of nuts in the world and when you encounter it (not if, but when), you just rack it up to, well, nuts, and you move onward, always in search of reason and rationality.
In this case, with CatsBGCph, however, there was no hint of conflict, no argument, no nothing. No nothing at all.
Ok, that can sometimes happen also. Maybe there's a technical glitch. In those cases you try again a few times to reestablish contact, maybe from alternate accounts.
I did all of those things and more for weeks on end.
I could see that every polite message I sent was being read, usually within minutes.
But there was never again a single reply.
I racked it up to nuts. And I moved on.
The trouble is, when you're a cat lover and a photographer and a people person, you're going to be thrust right back into the mix where these people operate, and that happened again and again and again.
Steadfastly, I maintained my assessment that they were simply nuts, and avoided all contact with them, directly or otherwise. And that was kind of ok. I felt a significant loss, not being able to be involved with a local cat effort, after spending twenty years involved in them around the world without the slightest hint of any friction. But what could I do?
It came to pass in the fall of 2023 that two different people wanted to adopt (or abduct) two different cats in BGC, that were informally under the care of CatsBGCph. I told them to go ahead and contact CatsBGCph, but I would not assist them in any way. I had washed my hands of a group I felt was unspeakably rude and maybe just a little wacked. I didn't need the grief.
However the situation with both of these people was that they needed housing for these two cats for up to several months, until they could take them into their own homes, one in America. They wanted the cats not on the street, but well fed and safe and cared for, and they needed temporary cat housing and were of course willing to pay for it.
I had an idea that CatsBGCph might have facilities where this could take place, but I was loathe to dip my toes back into that apparent madness and I refused to contact CatsBGCph on their behalf. I suggested they do it themselves.
In the interim I started looking on my own for local temporary cat hotels in the greater BGC area. I found absolutely none at all.
Finally, end of November, 2023, I decided to bite the proverbial bullet and contact CatsBGCph ONLY for the purpose of trying to put these deals together for these people.
I explained politely in a few messages on Instagram that I wanted to try to arrange housing for these two cats, and we need not (we WOULD ABSOLUTELY NOT) communicate beyond that. You do what you have to do for the cats.
I did make those inquiries to CatsBGCph, and I watched them be read, repeatedly. And what do you suppose happened?
The messages were properly read, and then vanished.
And that was that.
I never heard from them again.
So here we are, at the very tail end of my unfortunate and unpleasant encounter with CatsBGCph, and the cats are still homeless, and I still find CatsBGCph unspeakably rude and counter-productive to their sworn mission (helping cats), and I wash my hands of the entire sordid affair. By God, enough is enough.
I conclude these people are nuts -- even beyond a garden-variety, normal kind of nuts that you tend to find more and more around the world these days -- I find them quite astonishingly cracked.
At this juncture I have no clue what their real agenda is. I have no clue what they're up to. I have no clue why they flushed their manners down the toilet.
I just have no clue.
All I can do is post my experience, and then make sure that they, and me, shall never cross paths again.
And what a shame for the cats.
Frankly, it flat-out pisses me off.
People need to grow up.