Goodbye, old friend...

Not at all. Smoking in ones car or home generally requires a degree of negotiation and understanding of others. Unless you're a little dictator, a misogynist or a misandrist. I'm hoping the government enact similar legislation here.

From that news story: "These officials say that data on the total number of drug users, the number of users needing treatment, the types of drugs being consumed and the prevalence of drug-related crime is exaggerated, flawed or non-existent. But they say the problematic statistics don't matter because the campaign has focused attention on a long-neglected crisis in the Philippines.

"I don't see it as a problem," said Wilkins Villanueva, the Metro Manila regional director for the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), the country's leading anti-narcotics agency. "Before, our fight against dangerous drugs was a lonely battle Now, everybody's helping us - the community's helping us."

Pesky facts? Not a problem, it seems!

And as for those who created the story: "In response to questions from Reuters, Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said the story was "malicious" and referred Reuters to the Philippine National Police." The Philippines is not a place where journalists should get on the wrong side of the Establishment.

He did?? Thats news to me.
A link to that ordinance would be useful!!

So is he a dictator now.... able to impose his own laws ?

Presumably he will also be banning the cultivation of tobacco plants ?

Some of the farmers in our area won't be very happy about that. Compensation ?

A tale from a Filipina friend, Tina Cuyugan, 0f the ADB:

"A couple of years ago, I happened to be seated next to a Chinese woman on a flight to Hong Kong. It was a turbulent passage, and she was nervous. We chatted a bit--she had been an English Lit major!--and talking helped to quell her anxiety.

" She told me she had been living and working on a lush island resort in the South Pacific that catered solely to PRC tourists, a very different place from the polluted, dust-ridden western Chinese province where she had grown up. That province was so godforsaken, the one-child policy was not implemented there, and so her parents--both hardworking factory workers--had three daughters. All had completed university degrees. My seatmate--her name sounded like "Li An"--had ended up working in Shanghai for a tour operator, which assigned her to the resort for two years. It had been her first time to go abroad.

"She was still in awe of the natural beauty of the island, but was lonely. She felt out of sync with the ways of the South Pacific, and I could imagine the mutual bafflement between this somewhat driven, anxious Chinese woman and her laid-back islander co-workers.

"As the plane bucked, she gripped my arm. But when at some point it dawned on her that I was a Filipino--it was a time when the PRC government was feeding its people propaganda about our alleged aggression in the West Philippine Sea--she drew back, looking distrustful. As the plane lurched yet again, she instead clutched at the elderly Indian gentleman on her other side. He looked most offended at that, and so she had no choice but to turn back to me, her country's enemy, for comforting conversation. We talked of Jane Austen.

"She wanted to bring her parents to live with her for at least a year in the South Pacific. Their hometown is one of the many hundreds of "cancer villages" in industrial areas where dangerous chemicals have leached into the soil and water, fallout from China's runaway economic growth. Cancer mortality rates there have almost doubled in recent decades, making it the country's leading cause of death. She worried about her parents' health and felt they would do better with her on the tropical island, with its beaches and endless freshwater supply. She imagined how overwhelmed they would be by its bright skies, just as she had been. "Do you think they will be all right in this foreign place?" she asked me. I replied that they would be fine; the elderly often take to new experiences more readily than young people imagine.

"Li-An wanted to be married by the time she turned 34, but the marriage market was complicated for someone like her. She had seen a different world, and somehow this had made it harder for her to find a match. She wanted to find new work and even migrate. She wanted to settle in a place that was green, less polluted, more secure, less fiercely competitive. She wanted her sisters to join her. They had decent jobs; but the middle classes in the PRC, as she described them, seemed to be living in fear of some impending, undefined doom--economic collapse, sure, but maybe also political fragmentation? Environmental disaster? A center which could not hold?

"As we approached Hong Kong, the turbulence worsened; it was so bad, and her grip on my arm so tight, it crossed my mind that we might both end up plunging together into the seas her country was trying to take from mine. A ridiculous way to die, I thought, smashed on some outcrop of coral in the middle of nowhere, clutching the "enemy."

"But we landed safely after all. And as we got ready to disembark, she revealed that she had never been to Hong Kong before. Would they give her a hard time at the immigration counter? Would she be able to find her hotel? She spoke no Cantonese. You'll be fine, I said. We exchanged cards. As I headed to my connecting flight, I looked back to see her carried off in a wave of passengers, one of 1.2 billion Chinese coping with life as best they can. Just like us.

"Since then, I've occasionally wondered how Li-An is; she has crossed my mind more often during this week of geopolitical gamesmanship and possible shady backroom deals by heads of state and their business cohorts. Like other Filipinos, I worry about the projected flow of Chinese money and PRC citizens and poisonous heavy industry into the Philippines, and about the looming charter change that might open up our natural resources to foreigners and allow foreign ownership of our land. Which is green, and has bright skies, and fresh water that is considerably less industrial in taste than that of Li-An's hometown. I wish her well, but I think about these things."

Just as I thought .... There is no nationwide smoking ban, just the intention to introduce one as Al Jazeera reports "Duterte wants to ban public smoking in Philippines".

Pesky things facts .... they tend to get in the way of a good story rant.

Well, I did make it clear that I was quoting the Daily Mail!

Yankees Go Home - and take your business with you!

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