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[av_heading heading=’ICAST seeks help of barangay officials ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY MERIANNE GRACE EREÑETA
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ILOILO City – The Iloilo City Anti-Smoking Task Force (ICAST) urged barangay officials to help enforce the city’s anti-smoking ordinance.
The city has 180 barangay councils but according to ICAST director Iñigo Garingalao, not all barangay officials are supportive of the city government’s anti-smoking campaign.
Even youngsters can easily buy cigarettes, he observed.
Regulation Ordinance 2014-258 prohibits the sale of cigarettes to minors. It also empowers barangay officials to apprehend violators.
The ordinance prohibits the following:
* sale or distribution of tobacco products via self-service facility without mechanism for age verification
* sale or distribution of tobacco products to minors by any retailers
* purchase of cigarettes or any tobacco product from a minor
* purchase of cigarettes or any tobacco product by a minor
* allowing minors to smoke
Garingalao also observed that vendors hide the cigarettes they peddle every time they spot ICAST members operating.
ICAST has some 25 enforcers.
A study conducted by West Visayas State University – College of Arts and Sciences professors has alarmed ICAST. It found out that one percent of Grade 6 and Grade 10 students in public Iloilo City schools were daily cigarette smokers.
The research, titled “Cigarette smoking in Iloilo City schools: Smokers’ profile, awareness, intervention and enforcement”, was conducted by professors Agatha Senina, Grace Manajero, Eileen Loreno, and Ritchell Tuvillo from 2013 until 2015.
Twenty percent of the total population of grades 6 and 10 public elementary schools in the city were the study’s respondents.
Meanwhile, Regulation Ordinance 2014- 527 prohibits smoking in public places and conveyances:
* school compounds and within 10 meters from the entrance gates and fences of their surrounding
* public buildings and within five meters from entrance and walls of their surroundings
* public and conveyances and government-owned vehicles
* locations with fire hazards
* within one hundred meters of the surrounding premises of buildings of public or private hospitals, medical, dental, optical clinics and pharmacies
* hotels, motels and the like
* restaurant, bars, disco houses and other entertainment establishments
* private workplaces
* public places where 10 or more persons convene
* waiting sheds, within compound of plazas, in front of sari-sari stores, wellness centers, recreation and exercise areas, churches, sports centers, sports complex, gyms, cockpits and the likes./PN
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