Duterte Orders Strict Smoking Ban in Philippines, Asks Citizens to Help
Phillipine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has overseen a deadly campaign to eradicate drug use in the Philippines, has now ordered a strict public ban on smoking and called on citizens to help the local authorities apprehend smokers.
The executive order, signed this week and made public on Thursday, forbids the use of tobacco, including electronic cigarettes, in all public spaces, even sidewalks.
It also prohibits anyone under 18 from “using, selling or buying cigarettes or tobacco products.”
More than a quarter of Filipinos smoke, according to a 2015 World Health Organisation report, including 11 percent of minors. The nationwide measure, known as Executive Order 26, is similar to the near universal smoking ban Mr Duterte put in place in Davao City in 2002, when he was the city’s mayor. A former smoker, Mr Duterte quit cigarettes and drinking decades ago, when he was found to have two rare conditions, Barrett’s esophagus and Buerger’s disease. According to the new order, tobacco cannot be sold within 100 metres, or about 330 feet, of schools, playgrounds or anywhere children might gather.
Municipalities must also designate smoking areas that are far from these places, and away from elevators, stairwells, gas stations, health centres and wherever food is prepared. “No smoking” signs are to be posted in all public places.
The order also called on civilians to join a “Smoke Free Task Force to help carry out the provisions of this order” and apprehend and charge violators. Gangs of vigilantes have taken seriously the president’s call to slaughter addicts. And international observers have accused Mr Duterte of encouraging these vigilantes and overlooking extrajudicial killings by police officers.
Violators of the smoking ban in the Philippines could face up to four months in jail and a fine of 5000 pesos, around US$100, the presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said. Mr Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno S. Aquino III, signed a law in 2014 requiring bold, graphic health warnings on all cigarette packages, but studies show it has done little to stub the vice in this country of 104 million.