PLAIN THOUGHTS – Preventing deaths and injuries

Davao City’s firecracker ban ordinance is now being replicated in other parts of the country owing to its success not just in preventing deaths and injuries but also in making fund savings from getting rid of incidents that are actually preventable.
The sale, distribution and use of firecrackers and other similar pyrotechnic devices, have been strictly implemented in Davao City since 2001. At that time, the city government is in need of additional funds to augment the allocations for its flagship health program.
When Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte found out that there is a yearly allocation to address the medical needs of people who get injured from firecrackers, he then declared the firecracker ban so that the allocated funds can be better rechanneled to where it is most needed.
An ordinance backing up his ban declaration was in fact passed only in the following year, the Ordinance No. 060-02 Series of 2002. Since the ban implementation, Davao City has achieved a two-fold gain: a zero-casualty from firecrackers specifically during the eves of Christmas and New Year and an increased fund allocation to better the health being of the people.
While other key cities of Mindanao and other parts of the country started to replicate the practice, Davao City’s version remains the most stringent when it comes to scope and range, offering no single exemption.
In fact, members of Filipino-Chinese community in the city have had to explore an innovative way of celebrating Chinese New Year where a dragon dance is a key feature supposedly incomplete sans the bursts of pyrotechnics. In lieu of firecrackers, however, they still hold the dragon dance accompanied by fireworks display flashed from a wide screen ultrasound TV.
An organizer of a fundraising fun run recently aired their difficulty in finding from every store in town the powder to be used in a starter pistol. Getting none of the substance which was aplenty before the firecracker ban, they made use of flags to start the event.
Certainly, the implementation of the firecracker ban has altered the lives of people particularly those who have previously made financial benefits from the unbridled flow of the trade. It also changed our conventional ways of celebrating a cultural festivity or holding a sporting event.
But the overall gains from its implementation far exceeded whatever cost or inconvenience it may have caused to some segments of our community.
The same holds true in the strict implementation of speed limit. To address the alarming increase in the occurrence of traffic mishaps on highways and major streets caused by over speeding and reckless driving, the local government imposed a speed limit at 30 KpH, 40 KpH and 60 KpH starting from the downtown area towards the outer portions of the city.
Executive Order #39 Series of 2013, an order setting the speed limits for all kinds of motor vehicles within the territorial jurisdiction of Davao City, was fully implemented in 2014.
The start of its implementation was not entirely welcomed particularly among taxi and jeepney drivers, claiming that it inhibits their opportunity by limiting the frequency to get more passengers, thereby reducing their daily income.
The drivers’ complaints may sound valid but not necessarily sufficient to override the greater intent of the executive order anchored on the encompassing road safety context prevailing in the city.
Before its implementation, the number of road mishaps posted an annual increase of 37 percent with an average of 485 non-fatal physical injuries and 17 deaths each year.
Last year, traffic enforcers made a total of 5,823 apprehensions for violating E.O. #39. The number is relatively low considering that Davao City has 15,210 public utility vehicles plying the city’s more than a thousand kilometers of road serviced by 83 routes excluding the private and government-owned vehicles.
But its enforcement completely reversed the trend in the city’s entire traffic situation. From a total of 18,239 road mishaps recorded in 2013, the figures decreased to 11,795 in 2014 or a decrease of 35.33 percent, inverting the almost equal rate of annual increase posted in the previous years.
The statistical data backed up the well-established concept, subscribed by a growing number of public health experts, which holds that traffic injuries and deaths are non-accident outcomes. It defines accidents as “unexpected occurrences that happen by chance,” whereas injury outcomes—although generally unintentional—are “characterized by well-established factors that could be addressed by intervention.”
The city’s strict implementation of firecracker ban and speed limit proves that injuries and even the loss of lives and properties are not actually unavoidable. It demonstrates that high financial costs from irresponsible revelry and over speeding are completely unnecessary.
In preventing deaths and injuries, these groundbreaking practices only reaffirm that Davao City is indeed, one of the world’s safest cities.