Number of smokers declines in Baguio, so do tobacco-related illnesses

BAGUIO CITY — The number of smokers in the summer capital has steadily declined.

At the same time, the number of patients with tobacco-oriented ailments like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has also gone down because now, few people are puffing cigarettes.

The city’s epidemiologist informed Baguio lawmakers about these developments last week. 

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These are positive and measurable results following Baguio’s decision to ban smoking in public places almost a decade ago, and to tighten regulations covering cigarette sale.

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This is according to Dr. Donabel Tubera-Panes of the City Health Services Office, in a report she presented to the Baguio City Council on August 17. 

For the past nine years, Baguio has been enforcing the Smoke Free Baguio Ordinance (Ordinance No. 34, Series of 2017).

This policy penalizes people, including visitors, who smoke conventional tobacco products or electronic cigarettes in public places like streets and parks or public indoor facilities like restaurants. 

“From 31.9 percent of adult smokers in the first tobacco survey conducted in 2014, the percentage has been reduced to 8.9 percent by 2022,” Panes said.

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“The 2023 Baguio Youth Tobacco Survey showed only 5.29 percent of young residents – some of them adolescents – are active smokers, from 12.3 percent in 2019 and 20.72 percent in 2016 and 28.13 percent in 2014,” she noted.

Panes said 90 percent of patients struggling with COPD may have acquired their disease from their tobacco habit.

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She presented a graph which shows COPD cases peak in 2023, before descending from 2024 to 2026.

“So, quitting tobacco is still the best way to prevent tuberculosis-related mortality in the city, and we do that because we have a stricter no-smoking policy,” she said. 

Even the rate of apprehensions and the amount of fines collected by the city show residents and tourists have been heeding Ordinance 34 series 2017, Panes said. 

The number of smokers caught in public declined from 5,259 in 2018 to 858 as of June.

The fines collected from smokers rose from  P2.8 million between 2018 and 2019 to as high as P6.2 million in 2023.

“We have achieved the goal we set out to fulfill” with a smoke free policy and program,” Panes said, “except for another war front: Vapes.” 

She said Baguio ordinances ban the sale of vape gadgets, but adolescents and older youths manage to secure vapes online or from friends in school. 

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Panes urged the council to enact new rules governing the marketing and distribution of vapes through the internet. /apl