Duterte Orders Strict Smoking Ban in Philippines, and Asks Citizens to Help
By FELIPE VILLAMORMAY 18, 2017
MANILA — President Rodrigo Duterte, who has overseen a deadly campaign to eradicate drug use in the Philippines, has now ordered a strict public ban on smoking
and called on citizens to help the local authorities apprehend smokers.
Emer Rojas, a cancer survivor and the president of the antismoking group New Vois Association of the Philippines, said he hoped the
new measure would significantly reduce smoking in a country where it is common to see adults and children smoking on the street.
He said the national smoking ban could also save thousands of Filipinos — smokers
and those around them, who endure secondhand smoke — from cancer and other illnesses.
It also prohibits anyone under 18 from "using, selling or buying cigarettes or tobacco products." More than a quarter
of Filipinos smoke, according to a 2015 World Health Organization report, including 11 percent of minors.
The nationwide measure, known as Executive Order 26, is similar to the near universal smoking
ban Mr. Duterte put in place in Davao City in 2002, when he was the city’s mayor.
