Firecracker makers greet impending ban with gloom

Firecracker store (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)

(First of two parts)

They come in various shapes and sizes, wrapped deceptively in colorful paper and labeled creatively. But they are potentially deadly.

Despite periodic efforts to curb sales of firecrackers, hundreds of revelers are still maimed in the Philippines’ rowdy tradition of greeting the New Year with an ear-splitting bang, ostensibly to drive evil spirits away and usher in good luck.

Photographs and television footage of crying men and children with blasted hands and limbs have done little to shock the public and deter injuries.

But a huge blaze in October that ate through a row of fireworks shops in the town of Bocaue, Bulacan province, that killed two and injured 24, and a presidential vow to end the annual bloodletting could once and for all force the multimillion-peso industry to fizzle out.

President Rodrigo Duterte vowed during the campaign to silence the explosions that not only leave dozens hurt yearly but also blanket Metro Manila with thick, noxious smoke.

Mr. Duterte has banned firecrackers in his hometown of Davao City since 2001, a 15-year record that he has promised to replicate nationwide.

Bad news for industry

This could be bad news for the fireworks industry that provides seasonal employment to an estimated 100,000 people in the Bulacan towns of Baliuag, Bocaue, San Rafael, San Ildefonso, Norzagaray and Angat.

In many areas, sheds in the middle of green rice paddies double as backyard factories, where workers, including children, shovel and wrap gunpowder mostly without safety precautions.

Shops line the streets festooned in holiday colors. Tiny firecrackers with benign sounding names, such as watusi and triangulo, to ones with sinister-sounding labels, such as “Judas’ belt” and sawa, or a string of firecrackers that resemble a long snake, are on display.

Others are called “Goodbye Philippines,” which when lit, guarantees that you’ll say just that if you come close, and “Bin Laden,” a firecracker powerful enough to dismember you.

“Better to export them instead of selling them here,” Mr. Duterte has said.

But the proposed executive order patterned after his firecracker ban in Davao has been pushed back a year, giving manufacturers and economic managers ample time to adjust.

Officials said issuing the ban at this time would do more harm than good, with firecrackers already in production for the seasonal rush. Stopping distribution of the products could lead to financial ruin, particularly for those who run small operations.

“We submitted the proposal last November, a little late, because the industry already prepared for the Christmas and New Year rush,” Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial told the Inquirer. “It can be more dangerous if the fireworks are put in storage and remained unused.”

She said the government’s Aksyon: Paputok Injury Reduction program for 2016 had recorded 70 fireworks-related injuries from Dec. 21 through Dec. 27, or 44 percent lower than the same period last year. The figure is also 73 percent lower than the average in the last five years.

“We have no regulation (on firecrackers), just an advocacy for now,” Ubial said. “The policy is just to identify what are illegal firecrackers, like piccolo. But there’s no regulation, unlike in Davao City where they have a firecracker ban. But that’s a local government unit regulation, not a national policy.”

She said that without an executive order, the health department could only urge local governments to hold fireworks displays in designated public areas that would be supervised by trained personnel. So far, the cities of Makati and Marikina have committed community fireworks display zones.

Economic dislocation

But for the families that have for generations lived off the industry, the government warning is like a death knell.

“We will need to speed up sales,” said Virginio de Silva, 73, owner of Biniong Fireworks in Barangay Pulong Buhangin in Santa Maria town.

De Silva’s was among the 88 shops shuttered in a crackdown after the October fire. Only half of the shops had been allowed to reopen as of early December.

“We suffered a huge capital loss, due to the work stoppage order,” he said. “If we will be allowed to reopen our factory, there will not be enough time to recover our capital.”

The shop has had to lay off some of its workers, who earn a weekly wage of about P5,000  each. An inspection, however, subsequently found out that the factory was operating with proper safety gear, and has been allowed to reopen with barely a month to New Year.

Shame campaign

The health department is pushing its shame campaign by identifying local government units with the highest number of injuries.

“The shame is itself the punishment,” health department spokesperson Eric Tayag said. “You would have wanted to be the greenest or the healthiest, right? Not the city with the most number of fireworks-related injuries.”

He added: “We do not know if this will work, but let’s try. Since the (executive order) has not yet been released, maybe the same campaign will work.”

Based on the health department report, the National Capital Region had the most number of cases at 33 so far, with Manila topping the list with 17 cases, followed by Quezon City and Navotas, with six and four, respectively.

It said more than half of the cases were caused by supposedly banned firecrackers such as piccolo and the noisemaker boga, an improvised cannon typically made from plastic pipes.

Most of the victims were males and unsupervised children. There have so far been no reports of death due to stray bullets.

National ban

The Philippine National Police Firearms and Explosives Office, as well as the Department of the Interior and Local Government, have issued a directive for local officials to intensify the campaign against firecrackers, and for the public to shift to safer alternatives, including toy horns.

Police also placed all personnel on alert for civilians and those in uniform who would indiscriminately fire guns.

Local governments have been told to designate areas where firecrackers are manufactured, displayed, sold and set off. Village watchmen have been asked to help the police in monitoring and ensuring compliance.

Police focus this year is on piccolo, a small cylindrical stick filled with gunpowder that in recent years has become a popular noisemaker. Last year, it accounted for 47 percent of 929 firecracker injuries.

PNP Director General Ronald dela Rosa this week said he would push for an “absolute” ban on firecrackers before next year’s holiday season

“We can do it next year, so that we will have a longer time for information dissemination and we can give notice to firecracker manufacturers early to be fair,” Dela Rosa said. “They could face financial ruin and would suffer if we enforced a nationwide firecracker ban [now].”

Hong Kong model

Dr. Anthony Leachon, an outspoken advocate of a firecracker ban and former president of the Philippine College of Physicians, said leaders must be “men enough to put an end” to firecrackers.

He noted that in Davao and, more recently, Olongapo City, firecrackers had been prohibited, leading to “zero casualties.”

“All talk about adopting or passing a law that would serve as basis for the ban on public use of harmful firecrackers is like shooting one’s self in the foot,” Leachon told the Inquirer, adding that local governments could enact their own ordinances.

Fireworks displays should be undertaken in public places, similar to how these are done in Sydney, Hong Kong, the United States and London, but only by a specific government agency to ensure public safety, he said.

He noted that in Hong Kong, the government organizes a 20-minute fireworks display at midnight of Dec. 31 in the middle of Victoria Harbour. Thousands flock to the docks to witness the grand spectacle.

“Firecrackers are long banned in Hong Kong and yet the New Year is celebrated in a big way—without anyone losing some fingers, an arm or an eye, unlike in the Philippines,” Leachon said.

“The Philippine government need not look far for a solution to the annual bloodletting and maiming at the end of each year. The Hong Kong model is well worth emulating,” he added.

Necessary transition

EcoWaste Coalition, which has been helping Manila in its awareness campaign, said the 12-month period was a “necessary transition.”

“The ban will surely not make everyone happy but the greater public interest dictates that a tougher policy be adopted to put an end to the preventable cycle of injuries, deaths, fires and toxic pollution due to firecrackers,” said Aileen Lucero, the group’s national coordinator.

She said local governments where firecrackers are manufactured, like Bulacan, must come up with a “detailed plan” to assist families expected to lose livelihoods amid the ban.

“This shift will be very challenging but not insurmountable if there is political will to make it happen,” Lucero said.