by Harley Palangchao

Baguio’s bid to improve the quality of its air especially within the central business district has been boosted following the turnover last Wednesday of an opacimeter, a smoke emission machine, by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The turnover of the machine to the city government was through the initiative of the University of the Cordilleras-Energy and Clean Air Project (ECAP) under Edna Tabanda.

UC president Edilberto de Jesus, Department of Transportation and Communications director Frederico Mandapat Jr., and other officials witnessed the turnover ceremony.

City officials led by mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr. thanked the USAID-ECAP under deputy chief of party Arlene Donaire for showing strong support to the city’s clean air program.

Bautista said the opacimeter would be a big help in the city’s regulation of public and private vehicles violating the Clean Air Act, adding that the city government and its partner agencies are determined to further improve the quality of ambient air in this mountain resort.

Councilor Erdolfo Balajadia, chair of the city council on health and environment and chair of the Baguio Regreening Movement, said that the donation came just as the city council is expected to approve on third and final reading the anti-smoke belching ordinance of Baguio.

Donaire acknowledged the show of interest by former and current city officials in the clean air and energy program of USAID.

This, as Donaire said that former and current officials proactively responded to reports quoting a World Bank study that Baguio is one of the cities in the country with a “bad” quality of air in its central business district.

The Department of Health has reported that cars using diesel fuel emits toxic substances, which if inhaled for a prolonged period of time at high concentration could be detrimental to health.

“Diesel emissions affect all people but children are more vulnerable… New studies show that air pollution not only exacerbates children’s asthma but may actually cause asthma in otherwise healthy children,” reads the DOH report submitted to the council about two years ago.

In the United States, studies show that fine particles and pollution from diesel shorten the lives of nearly 21,000 people each year in America and is also a factor in almost 3,000 early deaths from lung cancer.

The studies also show that US government health expenditure in 2010
was pegged at $139 billion due to premature deaths and health damages caused by diesel fine particles.

Baguio has been the pilot project area of the WB-funded Clean Cities Program (CCP), which aims to cut public spending on health and to push public awareness on alternative fuel.

The Sustainable Energy Development Program, the group implementing CCP, encourages the use of alternative fuel or bio-diesel, believed to reduce particulate matters in the air by 40 to 60 percent.
The WB report noted that health costs due to exposure to particulate matters in Davao, Metro Manila, Cebu, and Baguio reached about $430 million in 2002.