IF Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte puts his imprimatur on the measure, Davao City will have an anti-spitting ordinance. The Davao City Council approved on third reading last Tuesday a resolution to enact an ordinance making it punishable to spit in public places. Public place refers “to any place open to the public, such as but not limited to streets, alleys, sidewalk, parks, malls, markets, public carriers, public halls and buildings, banks, public squares, terminals, shopping and business centers, schools, churches and hospitals, within the City of Davao.” However, the ordinance, proposed by Councilor Samuel B. Bangoy, a medical practitioner, and co-authored by Councilor Danilo C. Dayanghirang, will not be unique to Davao City as other places in the country and elsewhere in the world have similar laws, some even as long as over a 100 years ago. In Councilor Bangoy’s own reckoning, an anti-spitting law was first implemented in France in 1880, or 129 years ago, followed by the United States of America in 1896, or 113 years ago. “Since then, more and more countries have followed the examples of France and the US by passing their own anti-spitting laws,” explained Bangoy in his proposal. He said he proposed the ordinance as a measure aimed at helping control the spread of tuberculosis and such other highly communicable diseases as SARS and A H1N1. In his explanatory note, Bangoy said about 75 Filipinos die of tuberculosis every day. “The health of the people is compromised by the continued unhygienic practice of spitting in public places,” the councilor physician said. Bangoy’s proposal stipulates the following penalties for violators: – fine of P 100 for the first offense; – fine of P200 for the second offense; – fine of P300 for the third offense; and – or a subsidiary imprisonment not exceeding six months in case of insolvency, or both fine and imprisonment at the discretion of the court. An ordinance addressing another health hazard is now in place – an ordinance making it illegal to urinate and/or defecate in public places. According to Councilor Diosdado Mahipus, a veteran of more than two decades in local lawmaking, the city council passed in 1986 Ordinance No. 111 prohibiting any person from urinating and/or defecating within public view on any street, alley, highway and any place within the vicinity of any public building in Davao City and providing penalties thereof such fines and/or imprisonment. Mahipus said that the most significant and landmark ordinance passed by the city council and signed into law by Mayor Duterte regulating behavior of citizens in public places during the last decade is the anti-smoking ordinance.
