Marlon Stockinger: This driver is a pet lover
Race car driver Marlon Stockinger and his dog, Naya. Instagram/Marlon Stockinger
MANILA, Philippines — Wherever Marlon Stockinger is, the globally-renowned Filipino race car driver brings with him not only his pit crew, but also his pet crew.
His dogs, Naya, Summer and Bloom, two of them are golden retrievers, always travel with him, he told Philstar.com in a recent interview.
"Ever since, at a young age, my parents always got me pets, so I’ve loved pets ever since," said Marlon, one of the Philippine ambassadors of Forever Against Animal Testing, a new campaign by personal store chain The Body Shop and Cruelty Free International to stop animals being used to test beauty products.
The campaign aims to ban animal testing globally by helping in convincing and training countries such as China, where animal testing is enforced, and to find more ethical and accurate methods of testing. Campaign proponents are targeting to get eight million signatures on a petition calling for the United Nations to adopt an international convention that will end animal testing for cosmetics products and ingredients “everywhere and forever."
Since The Body Shop began its anti-animal testing campaign in 1989, the United Kingdom banned animal testing of cosmetic products and ingredients in 1998 while the European Union started to ban animal testing in cosmetic ingredients in 2009.
In 2013, the sale and import of animal-tested products and ingredients were banned, completing the EU ban. The campaign with Cruelty Free International collected one million signatures, influencing significant progress across the world such as South Korea, New Zealand and India, which now have a variety of bans in place. Australia is set to follow with a ban promised in July 2017, as is Taiwan in 2019. Cruelty Free International have trained scientists in Vietnam and are now discussing with Thailand and other governments the possibility of a ban among members of the Association of Southeast Nations, including the Philippines.
According to Marlon, "A campaign like this is something close to me because I’ve had pets all my life."
"I truly believe against animal testing because there are more humane ways than testing through the expense of animal life. Everyone should treat and value animals’ lives as we do ours," he urged.
"You’re hurting an animal by keeping it in a cage. You’re making an almost prison-like environment for them in order just to benefit us human beings for either medicine or cosmetics. I think there are more humane ways of doing these," said Marlon, who regularly posts about his pets on social media.
