President Rodrigo Roa Duterte signed Executive Order. 26,
which imposes a nationwide ban on smoking in all public places.
Former President Benigno Simeon Aquino III, his smoking is openly known to the country (photo taken from the abs-cbn.news website) |
Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdia said in a press
conference that the Executive Order No. 26 was signed by the President last May
16, 2017. The executive order will take effect 60 days after publication in a
national newspaper.
The President who was
the mayor of Davao City for more than two decades have implemented the same
total smoking ban in public places.
It was in the 1st quarter of this year that he
asked Department of Health Secretary Paulyn Ubila to draft the executive order
that will implement the smoking ban in the country.
There will also be a smoke-free task force in all cities and
municipalities, and with members of the
Philippine National Police would be directed to help each other in carrying out
the provisions of the order.
The E.O. is based from known scientific pieces of evidences
that has established that tobacco consumption and exposure to cigarette smoke
cause death, disease and disability; impair health and lead to social, economic
and environmental consequences; and place burdens on families, on the poor, and
on national and local health systems.
Smoking ban will be implemented in schools, universities and
recreational facilities for minors.
Smoking will also be prohibited in enclosed public places
and public conveyances- examples of which are elevators, airplanes, ships,
jeepneys, buses, taxicabs, trains, light rail transits, tricycles and other
similar vehicles (whether stationary or in motion).
Minors are banned from smoking or buying cigarettes or any
other tobacco products.
Selling or distributing tobacco in a school, public
playground, youth hostels and recreational facilities for minors, including
those frequented by minors, or within 100 meters from any point of the
perimeter of these places.
Significant numbers of Filipinos die each year with a
tobacco related diseases such as smoke, heart disease, emphysema, various
cancers and nicotine addiction.
The Philippines is a signatory to the World Health
Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control , which gives priority to
the right to protect public health and promote measures of tobacco control.
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