The City Council of Manila has passed a new anti-smoking ordinance that slaps up to P5,000 fine and three-day imprisonment to violators, following Manila Mayor Joseph “Erap” Estrada’s recent move to impose a citywide smoking ban.
“We don’t have to remind everyone, again and again, that smoking is bad for your health. Does this need to be memorized?” Estrada said.
“But with this new ordinance that carries heftier fines and penalties, I’m expecting that smokers, at least, must think twice before lighting a cigarette,” Estrada said. “This is a warning.”
While lauding the City Council for its swift action, Estrada said he hopes Ordinance No. 7812 would discourage smokers to continue with the bad habit and push them to start a healthier lifestyle, like what he has started when he quit smoking last December.
Estrada, 79, has kicked smoking after he was briefly hospitalized last December due to asthma attacks. He said he has started chewing sugar-free medicated lozenges after being discharged from the hospital as an alternative.
Last February, he directed the strict implementation of City Ordinance No. 7748 that prohibits smoking in all enclosed places like hospitals, schools, public buildings, shopping malls, and other public places in the city.
During an en banc session last Thursday, the Sangguniang Panglungsod unanimously approved in third and final reading Ordinance No. 7812 or the “Smoke-Free Ordinance of the City Government of Manila,” which takes effect 15 days after its publication in major newspapers.
Authored by Councilor Casimiro Sison, the new ordinance is intended to support the implementation of the old law, Ordinance No. 7748, which has been in effect since 1991. That law prohibits smoking in all enclosed spaces and establishments such as bars, restaurants, public theaters, and malls; factories and plants, public utility vehicles, classrooms and school grounds, hospitals and clinics, and markets, among others.
Sison’s ordinance limits its coverage to all public buildings, facilities and establishments “owned, used, or controlled or administered by the City Government of Manila.”
“I think this is really to show a good example on the part of the city, that we are really serious about the prohibition [on smoking], strictly,” said Sison.
He added Estrada asked for the speedy approval of the new ordinance “so other sectors will follow.”
Under the recently passed ordinance, apprehended violators are to be fined P2,000 and/or one-day imprisonment or both for the first offense; P3,000 and two-day prison term for the second; and P5,000 and/or three-day imprisonment or both for the third offense.
This is a far cry from the measly P300 fine and a maximum of two-day imprisonment mandated in the 1991 ordinance.
In addition, Ordinance No. 7812 also prohibits the mere possession of any tobacco products, including “vape” devices, “whether the smoke is being actively inhaled or exhaled.”
The smoking ban in city government buildings is also not limited inside the buildings but also within the compound, and within 100 meters from such city government properties, per the new ordinance.
For those who cannot control the unhealthy vice, the ordinance mandates the establishment of smoking areas outside each city government building provided it is not less than 10 meters away from where people pass or congregate and with visible “Smoking Area” and “Minors Not Allowed” signage complete with graphic health warnings.
The purpose of the ordinance, it stated, is “to set an example to the private sector in promoting a smoke-free environment and to safeguard the health of the public using such establishment from the harmful effects of smoking and tobacco consumption.”