Mayors, it's time to ban firecrackers.

Dr. Eric Tayag of the Dept of Health sent me a message that the nation's hospitals have reported 70 amputations in the days just before and after New Year's Eve, many of them children who lost fingers or hands from handling firecrackers. Made me recall a newspaper story I did years ago about children undergoing painful rehab of hands with missing fingers, one of them the penmanship champion of his school. He made the mistake of picking up a powerful firecracker that didn't explode until he picked it up. Another common incident seemed to be lit firecrackers sticking to the fingers of kids with hands gluey from eating adobo. An orthopedic surgeon once told me that hand inuries are among the most painful because of the number of nerves in our hands.

Official firecracker casualty reports don't even count the deaths from fires caused by firecrackers, like the one in an Ormoc department store that killed two dozen people on Christmas day.

While on the beach in Matabungkay for New Year's Eve, I got a text alert from the Inquirer: injuries from firecrackers and stray bullets had jumped by nearly half from the previous year. That's an utter failure in governance. Public order should be steadily improving from year to year, not suffering a drastic meltdown. In the middle of the explosions, the news made me want to take cover with my little son. Good thing the resort I was at did not allow guests to bring their own pyrotechnics.


A table from the DOH's Kontra Paputok 2006 Surveillance Update. The last update was on January 2, 2007.

The producers at 24 Oras a couple of nights ago had the good sense to follow a report about firecracker injuries with a story about the opposite experience in Davao City -- no injuries from firecrackers in the biggest city in Mindanao, which banned private pyrotechnics starting in 2001. Instead, the news video showed residents celebrating by banging pots and pans. And no families grieving or distraught about a child losing his limbs. The message was crystal clear: Davao was being smart, while Manila insists on being stupid.

Davao may be ahead of its time in the Philippines, but is just showing the same common sense that occurred to much of the modern world decades ago. In few other countries, and certainly in none that the Philippines would consider a model for anything, would private citizens be allowed to detonate explosive devices in the streets. Instead, the state and licensed businesses sponsor fireworks displays that, following closely regulated safety standards, threaten no one.

The common-sense thing for other mayors to do in 2007 is obvious -- ban the sale and private possession of firecrackers.