Hoping Cebu City will ban engine idling

To the editor:

I was encouraged to read in The FREEMAN earlier this year that a multi-sectoral air quality council had been appointed by the Cebu City government to look into air pollution in the city and to find solutions to address this issue. This is a timely development as the health hazards of air pollution have been largely ignored not just here in Cebu but in cities throughout the world.

Earlier this year, in a world ‘first’, a coroner in the UK made legal history by ruling that air pollution had been the cause of death in 2013 of a nine-year-old girl who lived in South London. Ella Kissi-Debrah had been exposed to nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter (PM) pollution in excess of World Health Organization guidelines, the principal source of which were traffic emissions. Her sad death was attributed to acute respiratory failure, severe asthma, and air pollution exposure.

It is regrettable that air pollution is rarely cited as a major cause of asthma which is one of the most common ailments of city dwellers. Asthma is not the only consequence of air pollution; it is believed that 92% of the world’s population is affected by air pollution to a greater or lesser extent and that 90% of the organs of the human body are adversely affected. The WHO has described air pollution as ‘the silent killer’ with 8.5 million deaths annually worldwide directly attributed to it.

While I realize that there is no ‘quick fix’ to the health hazard posed by air pollution, there is one contributor to air pollution that could be fixed immediately and that is to prohibit the practice of engine idling. Not a day goes by that I do not witness drivers idling their engines; the practice is rampant and the offenders are either ignorant or indifferent to the harm it does to the lungs of passersby.

Engine idling on the streets of Cebu is not confined to any one kind of vehicle driver; the practice is common with drivers of BPO shuttle vans, armored cars (with particularly noxious exhaust fumes), Cebu City government vehicles, private cars, delivery vans, trucks, taxis -- in fact the full gamut of drivers.

Just the other day, I noted two lorries with engines running at the entrance of a building site. Just a few yards away, were two guards, fully attired in COVID-19 protection suits, yet clearly oblivious to the far greater health hazard posed by the toxic exhaust fumes they were breathing in.

A number of progressive cities in the world, including London and Zhuhai, have total bans on engine idling. I hope that Cebu City will join them. The first step could be for the city government to initiate a simple consciousness-raising anti-idling campaign and follow up with a ban on engine idling outside schools, hospitals, churches, and government offices.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Foster

Negros Street

Cebu City