The City of Dumaguete has caught up with many other local government units in the Philippines who have started going smoke-free.
A law passed by the City Council last year, City Ordinance 94, bans smoking in all public places, except in duly-designated areas (in the case of restaurants), promising a reprimand for the first offence, a fine of P500 for the second offense and a higher fine of P1000 for succeeding offenses.
As published by Wikipedia, “the rationale for smoking bans posits that smoking is optional, whereas breathing is not. Therefore, proponents say, smoking bans exist to protect breathing people from the effects of second-hand smoke, which include an increased risk of heart disease, cancer, emphysema, and other diseases.[2][3] Laws implementing bans on indoor smoking have been introduced by many countries in various forms over the years, with some legislators citing scientific evidence that shows tobacco smoking is harmful to the smokers themselves and to those inhaling second-hand smoke.”
There are also other pluses to having smoke-free communities: reduced risk of fire, healthier surroundings and whiter teeth, among a myriad of other reasons.
However, Dumaguetenos–as well as Negrenses all over the island–are also being poisoned by smoking of another kind. We’re talking about the open burning of solid waste.
Open burning of garbage is prohibited by the Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 and carries a penalty of a fine of P300 for the first offence and P1000 for succeeding offences in addition to imprisonment. But this is one of the most useless environment laws because the practice is tolerated by authorities.
Smoke from the burning of solid waste is equally dangerous–if not more dangerous–than cigarette smoke because there are substances such as rubber, plastic and electronic items that may be included in those little fires. Unlike cigarette smoke, the cancer-causing smoke from the burning of solid waste spreads over a much larger area, spilling over into neighborhoods and into more people’s lungs.
Smoke from the burning of solid waste is thought to kill or drive away dengue-causing mosquitoes but judging from the figures of dengue patients in Dumaguete today, the burning of garbage has very little effect, if at all, in curbing the population of Aedis egypti mosquitoes.
So while we’re trying to make smoking a thing of the past, we propose that we do away with smoking and smoke altogether.
That would be akin to the un-environmental cliché of shooting two birds with one stone.
