‘Asthma cases to rise as MM air quality worsens’

MANILA, Philippines - Cases of asthma and other respiratory ailments are bound to rise as the firecrackers used to welcome the New Year made the air quality in Metro Manila worse, former Metropolitan Manila Development Authority chairman Francis Tolentino said yesterday.

“Alarm bells should be put in place because of the health hazards of polluted air,” said Tolentino, who is running for senator.

Tolentino urged the public to access the air quality monitoring portal of the Environmental Management Bureau, which said all 16 cities and one town in Metro Manila now have air quality monitoring stations that use three different indicators: Particulate Matter 2.5, PM 10, and Total Suspended Particulates (TSP).

PM 2.5 measures particles small enough to enter the bronchial tubes of the lungs and cause severe respiratory diseases, PM 10 measures those small enough to enter the nasopharynx while TSP measures particles that usually settle in a person’s nostrils.