Baguio bags anti-smoking award – BusinessWorld Online
BAGUIO CITY — Baguio City was feted with a prestigious global award in Dublin, Ireland for its exemplary efforts in tobacco control.
Baguio City Mayor Benjamin B. Magalong, on behalf of the city, accepted the 2025 Bloomberg Philanthropies Award for Global Tobacco Control on June 23.
The city was recognized in the Monitoring tobacco use category, a testament to its unwavering commitment to fostering a smoke-free and vape-free environment.
The international accolade highlights Baguio’s strategic approach to public health, specifically its robust implementation of surveys and studies to gauge the effectiveness of its tobacco control programs. These data-driven insights are crucial for assessing impact and planning future initiatives.
The Bloomberg Philanthropies Awards for Global Tobacco Control, announced recently, celebrate significant strides made by governmental and non-governmental organizations in adopting and implementing the World Health Organization’s (WHO) MPOWER strategy.
MPOWER is a comprehensive set of six evidence-based tobacco control strategies designed to help countries reduce tobacco use, monitor tobacco use and prevention policies, protect people from tobacco smoke, offer help to quit tobacco use, warn about the dangers of tobacco, enforce bans on tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship and raise taxes on tobacco.
A key factor in Baguio’s recognition is the diligent work of its City Smoke-Free Taskforce, in collaboration with the City Health Services Office.
This task force regularly conducts surveys, often partnering with medical students, to gather real-time data on tobacco use within the city. Surveys like the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) and Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS), with the most recent conducted in 2023, provide the essential data used to inform and refine the city’s tobacco control actions. — Artemio A. Dumlao