Students express doubts over smoking ban

(Published on: The Flame)

SMOKING is like an incurable disease that continuously haunts the society—no one knows exactly when and how it can be alleviated.

In the Philippines alone, the government has already resorted to increase the tax of cigarettes and to put up picture-labels that warn Filipinos about the smoking effects to curb the number of smokers. Now, a stronger reinforcement of the smoking ban is restored with hopes of achieving a smoke-free metro by 2012. Despite the efforts, many are still apprehensive thinking that it will not materialize.

Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chairman Francis Tolentino, with 17 local metro mayors, launched 100% Smoke -Free Metro Manila last May 30  to protect citizens from passive smoking. Coincidentally, the launching of the campaign also falls on the eve of World No Tobacco Day celebration by the World Health Organization.

The Metro-wide smoking ban campaign prohibits any person to smoke in “public places” to which Dr. Loida Labao-Alzona, MMDA Health Public Safety and Environmental Protection head, defined as—all schools, hospitals, youth recreation centers, overpasses and underpasses, loading and unloading bays, transport terminals, and roads within 100 meters of those places, including sidewalks.

Under Republic Act 9211 or the Tobacco Regulation Act of 2003, public places refer to “enclosed or confined areas of all hospitals, medical clinics, schools, public transportation terminals and offices, and buildings such as private and public offices, recreational places, shopping malls, movie houses, hotels, restaurants, and the likes.”

The MMDA had the whole month of June to inform the public and disseminate information about the campaign. In a published article at the Philippine Star dated May 31, MMDA spokeswoman Tina Velasco said that their means of intensifying the campaign about R.A. 9211 is via “word of mouth.” Those who will be caught smoking in public places will be issued warnings. However, the actual implementation and apprehension of violators will start on July. 

Under the law, violators will be fined P500.00 on first offense, P1,000.00 and P5,000.00 on second and third offense, respectively. Those who cannot pay will be required to undergo an eight-hour community service. In line with this, 64 environmental enforcers will be assigned to monitor major thoroughfares while local government inspectors will assign their own enforcers to implement the program on secondary roads.

Weak implementation

A law that banned smoking in public places was already created way back in 2003 but was not properly implemented. According to a 2009 study of the Philippine Global Tobacco Survey, 28 percent of Filipinos aged 15 and over (about 17.3 million) are smokers.

Meanwhile, schools in the metro like UST have laws prohibiting students to smoke inside the campus. However, the prohibition does not extend outside the University premises.

The University has been a smoke-free campus since 2002.

A fourth year student from the Faculty of Arts and Letters (Artlets) who requested anonymity said that it is tough to comply with the smoking ban considering that nicotine addiction is very hard to overcome and temptation to break the law lingers due to the presence of vendors selling cigarettes outside the campus.
“[Smoking-ban is hard to comply with] because first, cigarette vendors are just around,” she said.

The RA 9211 though states that “the sale or distribution of tobacco products is prohibited within one hundred (100) meters from any point of the perimeter of a school, public playground or other facility
frequented particularly by minors.”

“UST is a smoke-free campus but this very strong anti-smoking policy is defeated because members of the  Thomasian community smoke outside our perimeter walls,” Health Service director Maria Salve Olalia said, noting that the University does not extend its jurisdiction over cigarette vendors outside the University.
“With MMDA’s action, we can help our smokers stop this lifethreatening habit,” she added.

For Health Service resident-surgeon Albert Paulino, Jr., “The problem is the implementation [of law because] it is inconsistent, not persistent, and not insistent.”

While most authorities claim that the success of the smoking ban lies on the cooperation between government entities and the citizens, senior Journalism student Michelle Gonzales emphasized that President Noynoy Aquino, who is known to be a heavy smoker, must set an example. “Citizens will not follow [the smoking-ban policy in public] if our very own leader is a known smoker,” she said.

Expressing doubts

While the Artlets community proves to be a mix of both smokers and non-smokers, their views about the smoking policy have very little distinction.

Another fourth year student and a confessed smoker who refused to be named said that the effectiveness of the ban is “unlikely since you cannot stop people [from smoking].”

Students also doubt the success of the ban since other basic policies of the MMDA are not properly implemented like the “no littering” and “no jaywalking” campaigns.

For Philosophy professor Fleurdeliz Altez, smoking should just be regulated and not totally banned in public places.
“When you prohibit [smoking], smokers would find it hard to drop their vices. But if you just regulate it, the act itself will gradually decrease,” she said. 

The question should not focus on its (smoking ban) effectiveness, but rather, on its implementation, Altez said when asked about the MMDA strategy.

“I have high hopes that it would be implemented because it will be culturally good when smoking ban happens. It would reduce the opportunity of people to use money unwisely,” Altez said.

Since apprehension of violators will start on July, students still give the MMDA the benefit of the doubt.
“We’ll see [this July if smoking ban is effective],” Claire Capul, a senior Journalism student said.