Mayor to declare city hall, gov’t offices smoke, vape-free zones
Mayor Benjamin Magalong is poised to declare Baguio City Hall and all other government offices in the city as smoke-free and vape-free zones.
The move is part of the action plan of the city government to rev up smoke and vape-free measures to sustain Baguio’s status as a model city for tobacco control.Baguio has just won another international award — the 2025 Bloomberg Philanthropies Awards for Global Tobacco Control — for its monitoring efforts in tobacco use reduction. It was the only city in the roster of six winners (the five others were countries) in the global awards.
The city also launched last June 20 an ambitious anti-smoking campaign dubbed, “Road to Zero by 2028” where the city targets zero new smokers, zero new vapers and zero new sellers three years from now.
“This is a tall order but is worth every effort if we were able to save many lives from this health risk,” the mayor said.
He said City Hall and government offices should set a good example to others in complying with the no smoking and no vaping laws particularly Ordinance No. 34 -2017 or the Smoke-Free Baguio Ordinance and Civil Service Commission Memorandum Circular No. 17-2009.Ordinance No. 34 -2017 prohibits the use, sale, distribution and advertisement of cigarettes and other tobacco products within 100 meters of schools, public playgrounds, or other facilities frequented by minors, offices of the Department of Health and attached agencies, hospitals, health and government facilities while theCSC MC No. 17-2009 establishes a 100 percent smoke-free environment in all government buildings, offices and grounds.
A 2022 study conducted by the St. Louis University (SLU) in coordination with the City Health Services Office (CHSO) entitled “Global Adults Tobacco Survey (GATS)” showed a dramatic decrease in the prevalence of current tobacco use among adult residents in Baguio City from 35 percent in 2019 to just 8.9 percent in 2022 and among youth aged 13 to 15 years from 43.2 percent to 10.6 percent in the same period.
However, the prevalence of vape use among the youth spiked from 1.5 percent in 2019 to 5.1 percent in 2022.The Smoke-Free Baguio Task Force headed by the mayor is sustaining current programs to effectively implement the ordinance especially in rounding up and penalizing violators, continue information-education-communication (IEC) campaigns and other activities that promote tobacco and electronic nicotine/non-nicotine delivery systems (ENDS/ENNDS) or more popularly known as vape.
More strategies are in the offing including the possible enhancement of the city ordinance and involvement of more sectors in the campaign as the city government strives to achieve its goal of smoke and vape-free city. – Aileen P. Refuerzo
