By URIEL C. QUILINGUING
Contributing Editor
ALL firecrackers, either found illegal or deemed legal, would be seized by authorities anywhere and anytime here since a city government-declared ban on gunpowder-laden bangers is in effect. However, display, distribution, sale, and use of pyrotechnic devices for fireworks is permitted albeit regulated.
Engr. Jane Docallos, the city director of the Department of Interior and Local Government and chairperson of a multi-agency task force on firecrackers in Cagayan de Oro, announced this Wednesday during a Talakayan forum at SM Downtown Premier mall.
“Selling of firecrackers will no longer be allowed! Only fireworks!” said Docallos, who was joined in at the forum by TFF members’ representatives from the regional offices of the Philippine National Police, Department of Health, and the Bureau of Fire Protection.
Even the merchandising and lighting of pyrotechnic devices are regulated by the task force that was created by Mayor Oscar Moreno three years ago through Executive Order No. 160-2016 which the local chief executive issued based on DILG Memorandum Circular No. 2016-176.
“Selling of pyrotechnic devices will start on Dec. 22 and will end on Dec. 31,” said the interior and local government official who was appointed by Moreno as TTF head, explaining further that these flares should only be displayed at the rotunda area in barangay Nazareth and in selected business establishments.
TFF members, she said, would not hesitate to confiscate pyrotechnic devices if, this early, these are already displayed to the buying public.
“We are limiting the duration of selling, regulating the number of display centers where these can be bought, and designating fireworks exhibition zones,” said Docallos, who further told reporters zero casualty due to firecrackers and fireworks during the Christmas and New Year’s revelries is their primordial objective.
DOH-10’s Tristan Labitad, a physician and cluster head for non-communicable diseases in Northern Mindanao, said there has been a five-year downtrend on the number of persons who sought treatment due to firecracker or pyrotechnic-related injuries or burns.
However, Labitad showed to forum attendees there was a slight increase to 13 cases in 2018 from 10 the previous year across the region and these figures came from DOH sentinel sites, both government-run and privately owned hospitals.
He also admitted that they are not discounting the possibility of underreporting since clinics were not required to report and of individuals who may opt for self-medication.
On this, Docallos said the TFF membership includes the president of the Association of Barangay Councils, hence they have required all barangays to report incidents involving their constituents who figured out in firecracker explosions and wayward pyrotechnic devices.
She said they would be very thorough in scrutinizing the quality of fireworks materials, locally produced and imported if these carry the Department of Trade and Industry required product standard (PS) stickers.
Last year, the TFF confiscated 64 boxes of illegal firecrackers and pyrotechnic devices, without PS stickers, and burned these after the new year in full public view.
Selling of firecrackers was allowed then but not to minors since they are prohibited to buy and use these gun-powder loaded noise-makers under City Ordinance No. 13394-2018, otherwise known as the city’s Children’s Welfare Code.
