Nationwide smoking ban to take effect on July 23 —DOH official

The nationwide smoking ban will be enforced on July 23 and not on July 15, Saturday. 

Department of Health's Doctor Eric Tayag  clarified last Friday that based on the date of the signing by President Rodrigo Duterte of Executive Order 26 and its consequent publication on national media, enforcement will start on July 23, Radio dzBB reported Saturday morning. 

Duterte signed EO  26, titled “Providing for the Establishment of Smoke-free Environments in Public and Enclosed Places,” on  May 16, and it was published on May 23.

Earlier reports indicated that the EO's enforcement was supposed to be July 15, 2017. But reckoning from the date of the EO's publication, it will take effect on July 23, the report said quoting Tayag.  

Section 3 of the EO lists down acts that are considered unlawful and prohibited, namely:

• Smoking within enclosed public places and public conveyances, whether stationary or in motion, except in designated smoking areas (DSAs)
• Allowing, abetting, or tolerating smoking in prohibited areas
• Smoking, selling, or buying tobacco products by minors
• Selling, distributing, or purchasing tobacco products while using the defense that one didn't know the real age of a minor or didn't know nor had any reason to believe that the product would be consumed by a minor
• Ordering, instructing, or compelling a minor to use, light up, buy, sell, distribute, deliver, advertise, or promote tobacco products
• Selling or distributing tobacco products in a school, public playground, youth hostels, and recreational facilities for minors, including those frequented by minors, or within 100 meters from any point of the perimeter of these places
• Placing, posting, displaying, or distributing advertisement and promotional materials of tobacco products, such as but not limited to leaflets, posters, display structures, and other materials within 10 meters from the perimeter of a school, public playground, and other facilities frequented particularly by minors, hostel, and recreational facilities for minors, including those frequented by them, or in an establishment when its location is prohibited from selling tobacco products
• Placing any form of tobacco advertisement outside of the premises of point-of-sale retail establishments
• Placing any stall, booth, and other displays concerning tobacco promotions to areas outside the premises of point-of-sale locations or adult-only facilities

The EO is supposed to take effect 60 days after it is published in publications of general circulation. —LBG, GMA News