PNP: No seminar, no permit for firecracker makers, sellers

Firecracker dealers, manufacturers and retailers are now required to attend a “fireworks training seminar” being conducted by the Philippine National Police (PNP) before they could get a license to operate their business, a senior police official on Tuesday said.

“We are giving them certificates that (would prove) they have joined our seminar. In fact, this is a requirement for the approval of their license to operate. If they don’t attend, they won’t be able to sell … they cannot manufacture, they cannot deal in firecrackers and pyrotechnics,” Police Director Gil Meneses, head of the PNP Civil Security Group, told reporters yesterday.

Meneses said the PNP seminar series was in response to the directive of President Aquino to “educate” those in the fireworks and pyrotechnics industry on how they can engage in their business safely.

Among the topics in the seminar are the best practices adopted by certain businesses as well as the safe use of firecrackers and pyrotechnics, he added.

Meneses also said manufacturers and dealers are also expected to police their own ranks by reporting those who illegally sell or distribute pyrotechnic products.

Authorities are also monitoring illegal manufacturers and dealers by keeping watch over places where “fly-by-night” operators usually set up their stalls, Meneses said.

Dozens of lives are lost each year as fires break out in clandestine and often unsafe workplaces for manufacturing firecrackers that mushroom at the onset of the Christmas season. The mayhem continues when substandard pyrotechnics get sold to revellers. Nikko Dizon