Chasing Smoke

Three thousand, four hundred and eighty people caught in three months.

On paper, the Iloilo City Anti-Smoking Task Force (ICAST) looks like it is winning the war on tobacco.

But step back from the glowing press releases, and you realize those 3,480 apprehensions aren’t just a testament to local political will — they are a glaring indictment of a national government that refuses to turn off the tap.

ICAST executive director Iñigo Garingalao hit the nail on the head when he quietly admitted a total ban is impossible at the local level.

Republic Act 9211 and the newer RA 11900 essentially serve as legislative shields for the tobacco and vape industries.

Manila protects the manufacture, importation, and marketing of these products, leaving local enforcers in Iloilo to play an endless, exhausting game of street-level whack-a-mole.

We are wasting local taxes and manpower sweeping up a mess the capital explicitly allows to exist.

Real advocacy shouldn’t just be chasing smokers down the street, but actively lobbying Congress to strangle the supply chain.

Until then, we are just managing symptoms, particularly among the city’s most stubborn sectors.

Consider the 289 public utility drivers apprehended between June and August. General street awareness simply isn’t working for the transport sector.

If smoking is truly a “generational issue” learned through observation, working-class adults puffing at transport hubs remain the most visible bad models for the youth.

Slapping a violator with a PHP 1,000 fine is nothing more than a temporary sting. ICAST needs to get ruthless and tie compliance directly to transport franchise renewals or terminal operations.

Stop the engine, or they will keep lighting up. This visible normalization is exactly why the sudden drop in minor apprehensions — down to just nine kids — feels less like a victory and more like a terrifying false positive.

They probably aren’t quitting. They are just evolving. Catching a kid blowing cigarette smoke is easy, but catching a student chewing nicotine gum or puffing a vape disguised as a USB flash drive is an entirely different policing nightmare.

The 377 vape devices confiscated recently are merely a warning shot. The City Council must proactively update the ordinance’s definitions before these invisible, smokeless delivery systems completely saturate the local market.

But all of this aggressive enforcement requires sustained pressure, and that is where the whole system looks dangerously fragile.

ICAST currently deploys three teams daily, eating up significant budget allocations to keep the streets clear.

Garingalao was candid enough to admit that sustaining this momentum is a hard thing to do when there is a change in the local chief executive. Public health cannot remain a hostage to election cycles.

Unless ICAST’s funding and mandate are permanently institutionalized, immune to the whims of standard political patronage, this entire campaign has a looming expiration date.

A new mayor could easily gut the enforcement budget to fund their own pet projects.

We can write all the citation tickets we want today. But if the political will disappears after the next election cycle, the children watching us right now will simply pick up whatever bad habits we leave behind.