MMDA: TRO on smoking ban not yet in effect

MANILA, Philippines - The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) said yesterday its environment enforcers will continue apprehending persons seen smoking along sidewalks and major thoroughfares.

According to MMDA chairman Francis Tolentino, although the Mandaluyong City Regional Trial Court Branch 213 handed down last Monday a 20-day temporary restraining order (TRO) restraining the agency from making such apprehensions, the P100,000 bond which the court required the complainants in the case to post remains unpaid.

After being apprehended on July 6 for smoking on the sidewalk along EDSA and made to pay a P500 fine, security guards Antony Clemente and Vrianne Lamsen asked the Mandaluyong court to stop the MMDA from implementing a ban on smoking in public places in Metro Manila.

The TRO restrains the MMDA from apprehending smokers who will be seen puffing along sidewalks and thoroughfares after the court ruled that these areas are not included under Republic Act 9211 or the “Tobacco Regulation Act of 2003” as areas where smoking is banned.

Tolentino said the agency’s legal department is still drafting its motion for reconsideration and will file it as soon as it is finished.

Tolentino described the court ruling as a “minor setback” in the MMDA’s anti-smoking drive. “We will fight this all the way to protect the health of our citizens,” he said.

Tolentino also vowed to continue pushing with the MMDA’s anti-smoking drive using its authority under Republic Act 7924, which created the agency.

Tolentino also said the MMDA has information to show that the two complainants in the case were “planted” by a cigarette manufacturing firm to derail the MMDA’s anti-smoking drive.

He refused to identify the firm. – With Jose Rodel Clapano