For the first time in years, the number of injuries due to firecrackers on New Year’s Eve went down this year. On New Year’s Day, the Department of Health reported 191 cases – 68 percent less than last year and 77 percent less than the average number in the five years from 2012 to 2016.
The principal reason was Presidential Executive Order No. 28 which limited the lighting of firecrackers to a common community area in each barangay. Who would want to leave one’s home on New Year’s Eve just to light firecrackers several blocks away in some common community area? Thus, most people chose to stay home with their families.
There was probably another factor at work last New Year’s Eve. In previous years, people ignored the requirement, usually made by the local government, to explode firecrackers only in the common area. This year, police forces were believed to be out in full force to enforce the President’s executive order.
The police may have been more lenient in the past in dealing with firecracker violators. But in the wake of the national anti-drugs operations in which hundreds have been killed, the police may not be as tolerant of firecracker or any other kinds of violators. There was therefore an absence of the usual firecracker explosions in all parts of Metro Manila and other towns and cities in the country last New Year’s Eve. With much fewer injuries as a result.
The nation’s firecracker industry will have to adjust to this development. It has lost common ordinary folk as its consumers. It will have to shift from manufacturing firecrackers to fireworks, the kind that shoots up into the sky and explodes up there in myriad colors and designs. Local governments and civic organizations – not individuals – are likely to order these pyrotechnics for community celebrations.
The traditional Filipino New Year’s Eve celebration marked by firecrackers exploding in every street may have ended last week. But there are now fewer injuries and this should make the restriction all worthwhile. There should also be fewer fires.
We welcome this safer celebration and hope it augurs a similarly safer year for our country as it focuses on the serious business of building for national progress and a better life for all its citizens, especially the poorest ones.
