Smoking role model
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January 14, 2002
I WAS among those who frowned over the passage of the Anti-Smoking Ordinance by the Cagayan de Oro City Council in the early '90s. The ordinance, patterned after that of Quezon City's, was authored by then Councilor Tony Soriano.
Soriano, who later became vice mayor, was--and still is--a non-smoker. So were Jun Damasing, the Council's presiding officer, and Ambing Magtajas, the mayor, at that time. Before the passage of that law, only Councilor Dulce Ytem and another one or two legislators, not to mention journalists, filled the session hall with smoke every Monday afternoon.
That the Magtajas administration came up with such a law was understandable; they--most of them anyway--were nicotine-haters.
The Soriano Ordinance was bad news to people like myself in that it banned smoking in just about all the public places in the city--government offices, malls, auditoriums, public vehicles, restaurants and movie houses, among others.
Argued those who opposed the anti-smoking law: "There was no way City Hall could deprive smokers of their right to smoke!"
Soriano and company were unmoved; they passed the controversial ordinance as planned.
To some extent, the implementation of the Soriano Ordinance was a success; it minimized cigarette smoking in many public places in the city. It's because of this city law that people no longer smoke inside Cagayan de Oro's theaters. This is one of the reasons why I would rather watch a movie at home where I could light up and puff sticks to my heart's content.
Soriano's law has been extremely unkind to smokers like me. But what can we do? That is the law.
I only hope Dongkoy Emano, the city's mayor, realizes this, too. He cannot go on violating this law in the full view of the public. Why? Because he is the mayor, for Christ's sake! And mayors are expected to uphold and implement the law.
But there's a simple way out for Emano. All he has to do is tell his robots in the Council to scrap the Soriano Ordinance. By doing that, the Emano Council would be doing their boss and smokers like me a big favor.
Pastilan.
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