Nomination Form
Smoking in the Philippines is among the highest in the world today. In 2008, the World Lung Foundation and the American Cancer Society ranked the Philippines as 9th highest for adult male smokers and 16th highest for female adult smokers. Even among the world's youth, the country was among the heaviest tobacco users with Filipino girls occupying the 2nd place and Filipino boys in the 4th place in 2003. The 2007 Global Youth Tobacco Survey revealed that 22% of the Filipino teenagers or 1 in 5 high school students aged 13-15 years currently smoke. This reflects an increase of 30% over the past two years.
Equally alarming is that hundreds of thousends of people who never smoked worldwide die each year from illnesses related to inhalation of other people's tobacco smoke, or what is now termed as second-hand smoke. Studies have shown that exposure for as little as 8 to 20 minutes causes physical reactions linked to heart disease and stroke. The heart rate increases; the heart's oxygen supply decreases; and blood vessels constrict which increases blood pressure and makes the heart work harder. Thus, second-hand smoke also causes disease and death in healthy nonsmokers.
A Filipino is dying every 6 minutes due to tobacco-related diseases. The cure for this devastating tobacco epidemic in the country is dependent on concerted actions of people in the community, government and civil societies to encourage people to quit smoking for health reasons and to protect people from exposure to second-hand smoke. Implementing a 100% Smoke-Free Environment in Department of Health's (DOH) central and regional offices, hospitals and attached agencies as well as in all levels of local government units (provincial, city, municipal and barangay) is the start of protecting the population from the harmful effects of tobacco use and exposure.
Following the guidelines set by the World Health Organization's (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), Republic Act 9211 or the Tobacco Regulation Act of 2003 and its corresponding implementing Rules and Regulations, the DOH Administrative Order No. 2009-0010 on the Rules and Regulations Promoting a 100% Smoke-Fee Environment, and the Civil Service Commission's Memorandum Circular No. 17, s. 2009 or the Smoking Prohibition based on 100% Smoke-Free Environment Policy, the DOH RED ORCHID AWARDS 2009 is launched.
No comments:
Post a Comment