(I have to re-post this because I posted in on the wrong category earlier :D)
Hey guys! I need your help about my paper! (Well, it's due tomorrow. But since, our prof wouldn't be returning our papers anytime soon, and I am really curious as to what she'd think about my paper, then I'm asking you guys to mark it! No, not really mark. Maybe, just comment on it, or something, what you think about it, etc. Maybe my errors, and stuffs--and I am sure there are a lot.) Pleeeaase, THANK YOU!
And please forgive me. This is totally crammed :""""(
A few years ago, the government signed the passage of the R.A. 9211, also known as the Tobacco Regulation Act of 2003. Some of the goals of this Act are to provide the people a better and healthier environment, to promote good health to be able to produce a strong working force, and to keep the youth from smoking by regulating the use, sale, and advertisements of tobacco products. Unfortunately, the policy didn't quite show the ideal results during the succeeding years after it was implemented. In fact, the government seemed to have started taking actions just a few months ago, and is now a generation behind the anti-smoking policies that have already been in effect in other countries.
On May of this year, the government started becoming stricter about smoking in public places and about minors' access to cigarette products and tobacco. The fines became higher, the punishments worse, and the police became more attentive on the look-out. To assure proper dissemination to the public, they made a month-long information campaign period wherein smokers caught in public will not be immediately arrested, but will only be warned. After the month-long campaign, total enforcement was planned to be carried out. Because of all these, a more significant result was expected.
However, some politicians and even ordinary people still doubt the effectiveness of the campaign. Did the policy really help out on clearing our surroundings of all smokers? Did it really help lower down the number of teen agers who get into smoking? Was the policy good enough? In my opinion, the Anti-Smoking Campaign succeeded in terms of enforcement and on lowering down the number of smokers in most public places in urban areas, but failed on protecting the youth from being initiated to smoking.
The smoking ban had started gaining a lot more attention lately, after almost a decade of the anti-smoking law's implementation. A blogger named RyanB called it "overambitious", and even questions whether such an anti-smoking campaign can actually be enforced all over the country or be bound to fail.
However, the Metro Manila Development Authority (M.M.D.A) has proven how serious they are on planning to make this campaign effective. Nearly one month after the M.M.D.A. started the campaign, nearly three thousand smokers have been apprehended by enforcers smoking in public places. According to the article entitled M.M.D.A.'S Overambitious Anti-Smoking Campaign by a blogger named RyanB, the goal of this campaign is to make Metro Manila a smoke free zone by 2012. To achieve this, a five hundred-peso fine will be collected from first-offenders, while an 8-hour community service will be rendered to those who will not be able to afford. To prevent cases of bribery, the article states that the M.M.D.A. will employ three members to conduct the initial apprehension: one to take the picture of the smoker, one to apprehend and the third to do the ticketing. Furthermore, the M.M.D.A. states that if bribes are accepted, the 3-member team will be sent to jail.
However, most people still wonder how long the M.M.D.A is going to keep up with its enforced rules. Others still doubt the success of this campaign, considering the fact that in the Philippines, what is written on paper and what is being enforced are totally different things (if the fact that it took the government almost a decade to take the Anti-Smoking Law seriously is still not enough).
The M.M.D.A. has proven for just a few months that their heart is on the right place about this matter, but would it not be too soon to judge their accomplishments based on such a short time? In order for us to truly say the success of this campaign in terms of proper enforcement, the M.M.D.A. must be able to continue on their good performance and must not settle on being "here today, gone tomorrow."
Another factor to be considered to see whether the campaign has been successful or not so far is its ability to fulfill its goals. According to the Tobacco Regulation Law, one of the things that it plans on achieving is to provide the people a healthier environment as well as to protect the citizens from the hazards of tobacco smoke. Thus, to do this, one thing that it must fulfill is to lower down the number of smokers in public places. By "public places", the law defines them as "enclosed or confined areas of all hospitals, medical clinics, schools, public transportation terminals and offices, and building such as private and public offices, recreational places, shopping malls, movie houses, hotels, restaurants, and the like". Thus, it is expected that the aforementioned places should be free of smokers.
During the last few months, the M.M.D.A. did show promising results; being able to apprehend over a thousand smokers after merely a month after its enforcement, as mentioned above. The Department of Health Secretary, Enrique Ona, even commended the smoke-free campaign for its goal in improving the country's health.
Despite all the doubts about the smoking bans success, M.M.D.A. chairman Francis Tolentino clarified that "the anti-smoking campaign is in full swing".
"As of September 21, the Agency has apprehended 8,427 violators, 7,878 of which are male, and 549, female," said the Chairman in the M.M.D.A. website. "We never eased up on our anti-smoking efforts," he added.
Another one is about the youth's involvement in smoking. In spite of the law prohibiting cigarette advertisements and regulating the use and sale of cigarettes, the number of teenage smokers has gone up. According to a research conducted in 2005, 4 out of 10 students aged 13-15 years old smoke cigarettes. Moreover, based on a more recent study, one in every three Filipino teenagers aged 13 to 15 are already smokers. Despite the existence of Republic Act 9211 or the Tobacco Regulation Act of 2003, more and more teenagers had gone into smoking, and the numbers still continue to rise as the years go by.
The passage of the Anti-Smoking Policy did not stop the youth from smoking, "indicating that the law has not been effective", Maricar Limpin, executive director of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Alliance Philippines (FCAP), said in an online article by John Chapin entitled Philippines Effort to Cut Smoking Goes up in Smoke. According to a recent global youth tobacco survey, the percentage of smoking among Filipino youth had jumped from 15 percent in 2003 to 21.6 percent in 2007.
"We are losing the battle against smoking," Limpin added.
Among factors influencing smoking, the following are significant: media advertising, exposure to smoke in public places, and one or more parents who smoke [CDC-MMWR, 2005]. "My friends look so cool smoking," Arnold Santos of Mandaluyong City, who took up the habit out of peer pressure, said in John Chapin's article. "Now I smoke 10 cigarettes a day."
Teenage smoking is one of the things the government has been focusing on for the past few years regarding the smoking campaign. However, it is definitely hard to control smoking among youth, especially in our country wherein children as young as 10 are forced to sell cigarettes out on the streets.
Indeed, the M.M.D.A. has finally proven that they are working hard about the success of the Anti-Smoking Campaign. They have ensured proper dissemination and enforcement to the public, and they were able to lower down the number of smokers in public places. However, they were still not able to do much to help out on keeping the youth away from smoking. They may have all the materials needed for the campaign to succeed and have done all the other things to ensure the people's knowledge about it, but even if they failed on just one of its goals, then it is still not a complete success.
Besides, it is still too soon to judge the campaign based on just a few months of its official enforcement. Let us remember that no matter how much the government has achieved now, the campaign would still be a failure if they would not be able to keep this up in the years that will come. (1,348 words)
