|
Tuesday, January 28, 2003
Editorial: Clean Air Act blues
"Without addressing these two major concerns, we're afraid the government will have a hard time succeeding in enforcing the Clean Air Act."
DRIVERS of passenger vehicles, including the lowly motorized tricycles and their cousins "trisi-boats," are up in arms against government agencies trying to enforce the much-ballyhooed Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act is the law designed to put more teeth to government efforts to combat air pollution, most severely felt in urban centers and other areas where smoke-belching industries are situated.
With the law, government hopes to make Philippine communities smoke-free, that is to say, devoid of air pollution, an effort proven successful in many advanced countries of the world.
The drivers in Davao City, the nation's capital and elsewhere in the country reject the Clean Air Act for two reasons: the high fees for emission tests and the resultant phase-out of motorcycles with two-stroke engines. The drivers, led by their militant leaders, have started mounting protest demonstrations and rallies against the law.
Little do protesters know that the poisoned air sought to be defeated by the law is slowly killing them (drivers).
A World Bank study found that drivers are the primary victims of the deadly pulmonary tuberculosis disease, with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases appearing most prevalent at 32.5 percent among jeepney drivers. Bus drivers came in second at 16.4 percent, while commuters came in third at 14.8 percent.
The World Bank report noted that one out of four Filipinos or roughtly 22 million people are exposed to TB.
We urge the drivers and their militant leaders to consider the facts presented in the study, which are really just a confirmation of what is generally known to us.
This is not to say that the drivers should just keep quiet about the Clean Air Act's implementation, no matter how objectionable the way it is being done. They should reject the excessive fees, for instance. Government is not in business. Emission test fees should only be charged in order that government can recover expense involved in the test. It should not have allowed privatization of the test, like what it did with drug testing among drivers. Gross commercialization has seeped in, such that the integrity of results has become suspect.
Some people are saying that the biggest culprits in our poisoned air are the inferior kind of engine fuel we are using and the second hand vehicles that have flooded the country's transportation market. Without addressing these two major concerns, we're afraid the government will have a hard time succeeding in enforcing the Clean Air Act. |
|
[ return
to top ]
[ home
]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
