MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will this month ban smoking in public, the health department said Wednesday, further strengthening some of the toughest tobacco regulation in Asia.
The firebrand leader has waged a ruthless law and order campaign since July that has left more than 3,000 people dead while, as a long-time mayor of the southern city of Davao, he imposed curfews on minors and banned public alcohol sales at night and shirtless men.
The upcoming law is in addition to legislation banning tobacco advertising and regulating smoking in indoor public places, as well as a statute that requires graphic images of smoking health hazards to be printed on cigarette packaging.
“There has been a significant reduction in smoking, but the reduction has been slow,” Assistant Health Secretary Eric Tayag told AFP.
“We want to have in place all the tools that are needed to expand this campaign,” he added.
Tayag said the new drive was prompted by Duterte who, in 2002, banned smoking in all public places in Davao.
The World Health Organization said 20.6 percent of the Philippine population smoked as of 2013, 10 years after the tobacco regulation act was passed.
The country of 101 million also remained one of 15 nations worldwide with a heavy burden of tobacco-related ill health, the WHO said. The existing law bans smoking in indoor public places including government buildings, hospitals and schools as well as public transport.
Bars and nightclubs are required to set aside designated smoking areas, but smoking outdoors is not regulated.
Tayag said the planned executive order would plug that gap by only allowing smoking outdoors at the back of buildings “where there are no people.”
It will authorize municipal and city governments to impose penalties that could include prison terms, fines, community service or a combination of the three, he added.
Separately, the Philippines on Wednesday announced plans to open in November what it called a “mega” drug rehabilitation facility, funded by a Chinese tycoon, to treat up to 10,000 patients in Duterte’s war on drugs.
The news comes six days ahead of a visit to Beijing by Duterte, accompanied by hundreds of businessmen, as he seeks to forge closer ties with the Asian giant and daily airs his dissatisfaction with traditional ally the United States.
Several thousand people, mostly small-time drug users and dealers, have died at the hands of police and suspected vigilantes since Duterte took office on June 30, promising to eradicate the drug menace.
The center, located in a military camp north of the capital, Manila, was paid for by Chinese philanthropist and real estate developer Huang Rulun, whose net worth Forbes magazine has estimated at $3.9 billion.
Separately, the government has formally invited a UN rights rapporteur to investigate the thousands of killings during Duterte’s war on crime, a presidential spokesman said Wednesday.
Duterte to ban public smoking; giant rehab center to open soon
Duterte to ban public smoking; giant rehab center to open soon
US congresswoman supports censure of colleague over comments against Arabs, Muslims
- Republican Randy Fine ‘spreading hate,’ Democrat Robin Kelly tells Arab News
- ‘Members of Congress should not be targeting Muslims for political gain’
CHICAGO: Illinois Congresswoman Robin Kelly has said she supports calls in the US House to censure Florida Congressman Randy Fine, who has repeatedly made derogatory comments about Muslims and Arabs on his official social media accounts.
Kelly, a Democrat, denounced anti-Muslim and anti-Arab statements made by Fine, a Republican, saying she expects a censure resolution to be put together by House members possibly next week.
“There’s just no room for hate. That’s just the bottom line. I’ve seen hate. It causes people to lose their lives. It causes people to not have the same opportunities as other people. It causes people to have extra stress, extra trauma. And to categorize a whole group of people is so unfair,” Kelly told Arab News.
“I come from a family with a lot of different ethnicities or cultures, and I’ve seen the damage that hate has done in categorizing any one community.
“The Islamic community is just always presented as the bad guy in the movies and on TV … Being a person of color and seeing things that even my own family have gone through, I’m just very sensitive to it.”
Last month, when a supporter of New York’s Muslim Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on social media that dogs have no place in a Muslim home, Fine wrote: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
Then on Feb. 20, Fine introduced to Congress the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act,” cosponsored by nine Republicans.
Fine has been criticized in the past for making Islamophobic and anti-Arab comments on his social medial pages.
Last May, when Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib said it was “a crime to use starvation as a weapon in Gaza,” Fine responded: “Tell your fellow Muslim terrorists to release the hostages and surrender. Until then, #StarveAway.”
During his election campaign in December 2023, in response to an anonymous poster on X who criticized delays in getting food trucks into Gaza, Fine wrote: “Stop the trucks. Let them eat rockets. There are plenty of those. #Bombsaway.”
Before running for Congress, responding to a New York Times report and photo of 67 Arab children killed by Israel, he said: “Thanks for the pic.”
Muslim groups in Florida have been complaining about Fine’s rhetoric since 2021, including after he sent a private Instagram message to a Florida Muslim saying: “Go blow yourself up!”
Kelly said she is also disturbed by the comments of Fine’s allies, citing them as a broader undercurrent of Islamophobia rising in the US.
She insisted that Islamophobia is no different than antisemitism or racism against other groups, including African Americans like herself.
Fine and Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles “are spreading hate and should be censured,” Kelly wrote on her own Facebook page this past week.
“Our country is already divided enough, members of Congress should not be targeting Muslims for political gain.”
Ogles, a cosponsor of the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act,” declared: “Muslims don’t belong in American society. Pluralism is a lie.”
Kelly, who was elected to Congress in 2013, said: “I think they should all be censured. I say to people that feel the Islamophobia, ‘Don’t get weary, don’t get lost in the chaos. That’s what they want you to do. You can’t go in your house and close the door. You have to be a voice. You can’t stay on the sidelines because this isn’t acceptable.’”
Arab News reached out to Fine for comment.
