Smoking Ban On Public Places

Smoking will now be prohibited on public places starting May 30

Philippines - Starting next week, May 20 of this year, there will be a smoking ban on public areas according to Metro Manila Development Authorities or MMDA.

The new law will be implemented on major and secondary roads along Metro, Manila. However, this new rule can also be adopted on different municipalities with the mayor's power of City ordinances.

Officers and authorities from the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA), together with the seventeen other Local Government Units (LGU) of Metro Manila, will prohibit smoking in bus terminals, schools, waiting sheds, hospitals, recreational places and inside public utility vehicles starting May 30 of this year as part of a joint campaign project to protect Filipinos from the danger of secondhand smoke.

The smoking ban came just in time for the World No Tobacco Day that will be celebrated on June 1.

"We'll be launching an information campaign so people will know that smoking will be prohibited in certain areas of main roads of the metropolis," the division chief of Metropolitan Manila Development Authority's public health safety and environment protection, Dr. Loida Alzona, said in an interview.

Violators will fine P500 on first offense while those who cannot afford to pay five hundred pesos are obliged to render an eight hours community service like cleaning the streets, the MMDA said.

It was said that second hand smoke is more dangerous than actual smoking because you are inhaling the years long toxin deposits of a smoker.