Firecracker use: vicious cycle
Can people avoid using firecrackers? Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s hope is that the answer to that question would be a yes going into last night’s New Year celebration.
“I’m giving a general alarm that New Year’s Eve is a recipe for a big fire because people will double park everywhere, traffic will be bad, fire trucks cannot move in and people are playing with firecrackers. It only takes one and the whole barangay can go down in flames. We had the worst fire this year in Duljo... the year is not yet over. God forbid that we are reckless and you don’t listen to the warnings,” Osmeña said.
The worry is real, but what is also real is tradition. And exploding firecrackers to welcome the coming of another year is tradition. Also real is that the manufacture of firecrackers and pyrotechnics is big business, not in the sense that giant firms are engaged in it but because many relatively small entrepreneurs are involved in it.
That exploding firecrackers during New Year’s eve is both tradition and business is what makes it difficult to curtail. People could not be stopped from doing it, so too manufacturers can’t be stopped from making and selling them. Even President Duterte, who was able to control firecracker use in Davao City, could not do it nationwide.
The Department of Health traditionally spends money in December for commercials that portray the danger of exploding firecrackers. But it’s like in the campaign against smoking: people still smoke even if it’s ill effect on one’s health is depicted in photos printed on cigarette packs.
The New Year was still hours away when this was written, so we don’t know how much those campaigns against firecracker use have dented tradition and business. Probably not much, although judging from the experience on Christmas eve, exploding firecrackers and the injuries caused by it tapered a bit. But that was Christmas eve, not New Year’s eve.
Exploding firecrackers is dangerous for the individual because of injuries and for the community because of fires. In a democratic setting, the best that we can do is to come with regulations and issue warnings. Let the people themselves learn to take heed.
As for the authorities, summing up the lessons of this year’s New Year’s eve celebration focusing on the use of firecrackers is also the best thing to do. The problem is that after the New Year’s eve celebration, they shut everything up and wait until the end of the year to again talk about the use of firecrackers.