ILOILO City – The City Health Office (CHO) wants to take the anti-smoking campaign to another level. It has proposed that the city government should only hire non-smokers – may it be for casual or permanent posts. “This would benefit not just the individual but the government workplace as well,” said CHO head Dr. Bernard Caspe.
The CHO wrote the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) a letter requesting it to pass a resolution to “put a halt to the debilitating diseases brought about by the harmful effects of smoking.”
Caspe, a grand slam Red Orchid awardee, said non-smokers would be more helpful at city hall.
The Red Orchid award is given to local government units, government offices and health facilities for their noteworthy enforcement of tobacco control measures.
“Iloilo City should consider healthy and sound city government employees, free from smoking and its hazardous threat to one’s health,” Caspe stressed.
In his letter to the SP, the CHO chief also proposed that current employees who are smokers should undergo a “smoking cessation program” under his office.
Councilor Candice Magdalene Tupas, chairwoman of the SP Committee on Health, backed Caspe’s proposal but added that she does not want to discriminate city hall personnel.
Tupas said undergoing the cessation program can be a requirement for people who want to work at the city government.
“The CHO wants this to be part of our rule at city hall. I’m looking into making it a requirement,” she stressed.
“Wala gid man ‘ya manami nga effect ang smoking,” Tupas, a medical doctor, added.
The proposal will go through a joint committee hearing at the SP.
Iñigo Garingalao, executive director of the Iloilo City Anti-Smoking Task Force, also supports the proposed measure.
He said smoking affects how people do their jobs.
Tobacco kills more than seven million people each year, according to the World Health Organization.
“More than six million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while around 890,000 are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke,” it added.
In the Philippines, 17.3 million adults (15 years old and above) are smokers, according to the 2009 Global Adult Tobacco Survey, the latest of its kind conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority.
Filipinos mainly smoke manufactured cigarettes and hand-rolled cigarettes.
The report showed that 47 percent of men and 9 percent of women smoke cigarettes in the country.
On the average, male smokers consume 11 cigarettes a day while female smokers consume seven.
The report added that over 37 percent of adults who worked indoors or outdoors with an enclosed area at their workplace were exposed to tobacco smoke./PN
