Some Twitter users in PHL note less use of firecrackers in their neighborhoods

Citing various possible reasons such as having less money to spending, opting not to buy or use firecrackers, and going to malls and public places to watch fireworks displays, some netizens said via Twitter posts that their neighborhoods had less firecracker noise when they welcomed the New Year. It will take several more days after January 1 before the Department of Health (DOH) presents its final tally of surveillance cases of New Year revelry injuries, but according to Health Secretary Enrique Ona the decrease last year in the number of wounded was “a mere 1.4 percent." “From 21 December 2010 to 5 January 2011, there were 1,022 total injuries recorded. Of these total, 972 were fireworks-related, 39 from stray bullet and 11 from fireworks ingestion," the DOH said in a statement it issued back in November. Also given that Twitter-capable gadgets cost several thousand pesos, the tweets may likely be coming from the more affluent households and communities which have a wider range of revelry options available to them.

The DOH has yet to declare if its campaign this year against firecrackers and celebratory firing of guns was successful as a result of its firework-injury reduction campaign dubbed as “Aksyon: Paputok Injury Reduction”or APIR (Give me five). A visit to the DOH's safestfirecracker.com revealed that at least 5,000 people 'liked' the new approach. The website however had no statistics on number of downloads or plays of the audio files of firecracker sounds.  — ELR, GMA News