One of Baguio’s offbeat attractions in Naguilian Road is an LPG outlet that houses all sorts of stray and abandoned cats. The owner that runs this peculiar store and cares for these feline outcasts is Lea. Baguio-based CSM author Vickie Costina wrote about Lea and her favorite cat named Mayor Doma in And God Also Made a Cat book of devotions for cat people. Upon visiting Lea’s store on a bright, sunny November morning to give her a complimentary copy of the book, Ma’am Vickie was told that Mayor Doma had already passed away, but, as is usual with any cat owner or carer of several strays, Lea has new wards to attend to. Her current patient is a not-yet-named gray tabby that just learned to drink properly because its tongue got stuck to its upper palate due to its submerged cheek caused by a vehicular accident. Lea also recently took in three gray kittens found in a plastic bag that someone tied to the grills of her store’s gate.  Though not all cats in her store have been named, Lea has a ready story for each of them. Read about Lea the rescuer and other stories of compassion for strays and feral cats in And God Also Made a Cat by Victoria Rico Costina, now also available at the Mt. Cloud Bookshop near Brent School in Baguio City.  

Lea recounts how she treated the bloated cheek of her cat patient while holding her complimentary copy of And God Also Made a Cat as Ma’am Vickie pats the cats on what used to be Lea’s chair

Baguio cat ladies Lea and Ma’am Vickie pose in Lea’s LPG store, the book given Lea open to the page about her.

Three kittens found in a plastic bag one morning that was tied to the store’s gate

A menagerie of cats & cages

Kitten gracefully balanced among the LPG tanks (L), cat settled in its own box in a corner near the sidewalk (R)