65 Filipino Artists Unite for Biyaya Animal Care

The weeklong exhibition and sale at Leon Gallery brings together nearly 80 works to help fund a permanent animal welfare sanctuary and headquarters.

For many years, Rina Ortiz was an avid art collector. And when her calling as an animal welfare advocate came, art helped her establish Biyaya Animal Care, an animal welfare organization and veterinary group. “I sold most of my collection to fund what Biyaya is today—the hospital and the two clinics—for my own rescues, for every animal we could reach, and for the vision behind all of it: a Rabies-free Philippines by 2035,” she says.

This month, Biyaya Animal Care turns to art once more to help further its mission. In partnership with León Gallery, Biyaya Animal Care Foundation Inc. (BACFI) organizes a charity exhibition and sale, Art Fur All Kinds, a week-long art exhibition and sale that brings together the art and animal welfare communities. All of the proceeds from every artwork will be donated to the Bahay Biyaya animal campaign, which aims to build the organization’s permanent animal welfare sanctuary and headquarters.

With the theme “Compassion Has an Address,” the exhibition features nearly 80 artworks from 65 Filipino artists, including Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan, Annie Cabigting, Geraldine Javier, Kawayan de Guia, Manuel Ocampo, Maria Taniguchi, Mariano Ching, and others. Throughout the week, there will also be walkthroughs, family-focused activities, a moderated talk, and a special walk with Biyaya Rescues.

“Art Fur All Kinds is our first major fundraising effort for the physical development of Bahay Biyaya. The hospital and the clinics treat animals. But the foundation’s work—the kapon mission, trap-neuter-vaccinate-return, or TNVR, the training, the community education—has never had a home of its own,” Ortiz says. “Bahay Biyaya gives that work a permanent address.”

Beyond fundraising, the event also aims to open more conversations about animal welfare. “We have to stop thinking of animal welfare as something that belongs only to animal lovers. A dog bite [is a] community issue. Rabies is a public-health issue. An unmanaged animal population changes what it is like to live in a neighborhood. Abandonment and neglect have consequences that eventually land on communities and local governments,” she says. “That is what we mean when we say animal welfare is human welfare.”

“We hope that through this most noble and meaningful cause, León Gallery, together with our friends at Biyaya Animal Care Foundation, led by Ms Ortiz, can further reinforce the very important notion that all kinds of life matter,” says a León Gallery representative. “Animal welfare is not just an individual duty; it is a responsibility that we, as a community, should support and shoulder.”

With the establishment of Bahay Biyaya, Ortiz hopes that there will be fewer crises and more prevention. “There will always be animals who need rescue and treatment. But if all we ever do is rescue the next animal, build another shelter, and make room for the next hundred, we have not solved the problem that brought them there,” she says. “If we do this properly, the truest measure of Bahay Biyaya will not be how many animals come through its doors. It will be how many never have to.”

Art Fur All Kinds will run at León Gallery until September 27, 2026. For more information, visit Biyaya Animal Care Foundation and León Gallery’s official social media pages.