Injury-free campaign now includes ‘boga’

MindanoaToday.com | Injury-free campaign now includes ‘boga’

By: Uriel Quilinguing

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – For the first time in over three decades, the zero-casualty-and-injury campaign during the Christmas and New Year revelries here has included “boga” or bamboo cannons from illegal firecrackers and substandard pyrotechnic devices.

“Boga,” which is known as “lantaka” among Tagalog-speaking regions, used to be legal and was touted as a safer alternative to firecrackers, but not anymore in this city. It was not included in Republic Act No. 7183, the Firecrackers Law of 1992.

Days before Christmas eve, village authorities confiscated several bamboo poles and polyvinyl chloride pipes (PVC) about to be improvised as bangers in Gusa, a semi-rural barangay about five kilometers east from the city proper.

“We will not allow the use of ‘boga’ and put the health and lives of our residents at risk,” Village Chairperson Marlon Tabac, who sits as vice-president of the city’s Association of Barangay Councils (ABC), said on Thursday, December 26. “Nobody was reported by fireworks and otherforms of fireworks, so far.”

In Bugo, a village at the eastern border with Misamis Oriental, Punong Barangay Spencer Cailing in a post-Christmas Day message, said nobody attempted to use “boga” this time because zone leaders have already been informed the use bamboo or PVC cannons is already prohibited.

Elsewhere, in Tumpagon, an upland village situated over 36 kilometers west of the city, Barangay Chairman Cecilio Dagasan had issued on December 16, Barangay Executive Order (BEO) No. 15, banning the sale and use of “boga” and illegal and unregulated firecrackers and pyrotechnic devices.

BEO No. 15 also created a “Task Force Kontra Iligal na Paputok” tasked primarily tasked to conduct routine field monitoring, inspections, and confiscation of banned items, aside from sustained information drives focused on the dangers of boga, firearms, firecrackers and pyrotechnic devices.

Dagasan said he issued the directive and created the task force in compliance with Executive Order No. 511-2024 that the city chief executive issued on December 5, this year, which reconstituted the Task Group Firecrackers and Pyrotechnic Devices, and subsequent Resolution No. 1, series of 2024 of the newly-composed Task Group.

TG-FPD Resolution No. 1, series of 2024, enjoins all 80 Punong Barangay in the city to enact a BEO, banning the sale and use of “boga” and other illegal and unregulated firecrackers and pyrotechnic devices.

NINE-YEAR HIGH

In Northern Mindanao, the DOH-10’s Research, Epidemiology, Surveillance & Disaster Response Unit (RESDRU) recorded 37 cases of fireworks-related injuries (FWRI) from December 21, 2023 to January 6, 2024 which was a 370% increase over the 10 FWRI from the same period the previously (2022-2023). This was the highest number of cases in nine years.

Roughly 29 percent or 11 of the 37 FWRI recorded cases were traced to improvised bangers or “boga” and most of these were reported in Bukidnon which also logged in 14 injuries mainly due to illegal firecrackers such as “Triangle” and “Piccolo” brands.

Cagayan de Oro was a far second to Bukidnon with seven cases, but this number was more way above its three FWRI incidents in the 2022-23 surveillance period.

Lt. Col. Evan Vińas, spokesperson of the police office here, on Thursday, December 26, said not a single untoward incident was reported during the Christmas celebration, referring to FWRI and stray bullets. Still, they at the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office (COCPO) are on high alert as directed, he said.

On Dec. 5, this year, Mayor Rolando Uy issued Executive Order No. 511-2024, reconstituting the city government’s Task Group on Firecrackers and Pyrotechnic Devices to ensure public safety during Christmas and New Year’s celebrations.

Uy’s directive was pursuant to Republic Act No. 7183 which regulates the sale, display, and use of fireworks and in compliance with existing regulations on these from the Department of Interior and Local Government, particularly DILG Memorandum Circular No. 2018-216.

E.O. No. 511-2024 identified Paseo de Oro as common area for display and sale of firecrackers and pyrotechnic devices and designated certain stores allowed to sell. It also regulated the sale from Dec. 20 to 31, 2024 only.

DILG MC No. 2018-216 enjoins local governments to designate common areas for display and sale of legal fireworks and pyrotechnic devices and community fireworks zones. It also directed personnel from the Philippine National Police and the Bureau of Fire Protection to work closely with local governments in the enforcement of pertinent laws and regulations.

DANGEROUS BOGA

Those who toy with these improvised bangers would use either calcium carbide (kalburo) or kerosene in lighting a cloth as igniter on one end of the bamboo pole, cover it, then in seconds create a deafening sound that comes out on the other end, accompanied with thick black smoke.

Lately, particularly in urban areas, the use of polyvinyl chloride pipe (PVC) as cannons because it can produce even more powerful booming sound.

According to the Department of Health (DOH), the death of a six-year-old boy in Talisay City, Cebu in 2009 was later traced to lung damaged from the smoke inhalation because he was standing close to explosions of “boga” during Christmas and New Year’s eve celebrations.

The DOH has repeatedly warned against use of “boga”, which they deem to be dangerous as its use carries a risk of blast or burn injury, mostly involving delayed explosions to the facial region resulting in eye injury, among others.

There were reports that in 2006 “boga,” with the use of PVC pipes, was banned but still unclear if bamboo cannons were included because authorities just ignore them. [Uriel Quilinguing/MT]

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