Mayor Estrada wrestles with jumbo problem

Manila's new mayor and former president Joseph Estrada faces a host of issues: traffic, garbage, urban decay, lack of funds. And then there's the matter of a lonely female elephant confined in one of the world's most miserable zoos.

Vishwamaali, Maali for short, is the only elephant in the Philippines. Shipped from Sri Lanka when she was three, the 39-year old elephant has spent her life in a concrete pen as the star attraction of the seedy Manila Zoo.

Estrada sympathised with Maali's lonely plight during the election campaign. But he recently outraged animal rights activists when he clarified that he would remedy this by getting Maali some companions.

The five-hectare zoo, which is forested and has a lagoon, is smelly and forlorn. There are unlikely features such as a shrine of angels and the child Jesus, and a wishing well. Many of its enclosures are little more than cages with thick bars, rusty wire screens and padlocks.

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) maintains Maali is suffering and demands she be freed and transferred to a sanctuary in Thailand.

The animal activists have allies in celebrities such as French film star Brigitte Bardot, Filipino musician Ely Buendia and Nobel Prize winning author J.M. Coetzee. Last year the Philippine Congress issued a resolution supporting the elephant's transfer.

Three days before the mayoral election in May, Estrada wrote to Peta saying "it is not right for people, especially children, to see lonely, ailing and depressed animals living in deplorable conditions".

The would-be mayor said Maali was "an example of how we can right some of the wrongs of the past and teach compassion and understanding to a whole generation". He added: "She may be seen as 'just an elephant' to some, but she symbolises so much more."

But it was only after he won that Estrada revealed what he was actually proposing to solve Maali's loneliness. He said he'd talked to the Sri Lankan ambassador, who agreed to provide two baby elephants early next year.

The mayor also rounded on animal-rights activists. When former Beatle Paul McCartney wrote a letter to President Benigno Aquino last month asking him to "expedite the transfer" of Maali, Estrada accused the musician of interfering, He said releasing Maali would be "like admitting that we cannot even take care of one elephant".

James Dichaves, boss of Manila's Public Recreations Bureau, said the mayor had been prepared to release Maali "if a veterinarian had said so".

But a physical examination by a Thai vet showed "she was healthy, if a bit obese". Because of this, Dichaves said, the mayor had "no intention of releasing her".

According to Dichaves , "elephants in captivity normally have a lifespan of 36 to 40 years. If, as critics say, Maali hadn't been properly cared for she wouldn't be healthy at age 39."

Dichaves claimed that old as she was, Maali might not be able to handle the stress of moving.

Maali's vet check-up was one of two "priority" orders Dichaves got from the mayor.

Dichaves said the mayor had ordered that the zoo be redesigned and rebuilt in a three-year project costing up to 2 billion pesos (HK$355 million). Far from releasing animals, the plan is to acquire more, such as giraffes and zebras, to join the tigers, monkeys, crocodiles and snakes already there.

Estrada said that while the zoo is being refurbished, Maali would be moved to a wildlife park.