Iloilo City shared best practices on its anti-smoking campaign in a recent conference in Bangkok, Thailand.

The conference on “Strengthening Smoke-free Cities in Thailand: Learning from Philippines’ Success” held on Dec. 1-2 was a venue for local chief executives, law enforcement officers and smoke-free coordinators of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration to learn best practices on enhancing and enforcing smoking-free legislations at the city level from Iloilo City.

In a media briefing, Sangguniang Panlungsod Committee on Health chair, Councilor Alan Zaldivar said that together with Task Force Anti-Smoking Executive Director Iñigo Garingalao, they were invited by the Action on Smoking and Health Foundation Thailand to talk about legislation and the “nitty-gritty of implementation.”

Zaldivar shared that Iloilo City followed procedures, like a consultative meeting with stakeholders and inclusion in the agenda of the city council for approval.

He said the city’s anti-smoking ordinance also has a penalty clause of up to revocation of permits and closure of establishments if they could not implement the legislation.

Further, youths are empowered to become advocates against smoking and vaping.

“I told them we have a partnership with our local media because we cannot reach the 180 barangays. So, we tap our media partners to disseminate information and educate our people,” Zaldivar said.

“It’s a sharing of lessons and cooperation between ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). Their challenge is the implementation of the laws that they have at the national and local level,” he said.

Meanwhile, Garingalao said the activity was an initiative of Bangkok to reinforce its status after being conferred the Healthy Cities Award by the World Health Organization.

He said that while Bangkok got the award, there are plenty of smokers in its streets.

In Iloilo City, Garingalao said he would like to see barangay leaders embracing the advocacy and enforcing the ordinances, while emphasizing the impacts of smoking on the health of future generations.PNA