Unlike smokers, betel nut chewers can still do their thing in public places up here, so says an amendatory ordinance the city council passed last Feb. 14.

The day of passage (Valentine’s) apparently had nothing to do with the red product of the habit or practice among a growing number of “aficionados” no longer limited to Ifugaos and traditional tribal users.

The catch, emphasized city councilor Betty Lourdes Tabanda last Monday, lies on the provision for a portable receptacle for the chewer’s red spittle. It’s a necessity the city won’t provide, even if it did, for years, provide stationary receptacles at the “Ifugao Station” beside the stone market building that gave way to the Maharlika Building.

The council mandated “ betel nut (nganga) aficionados to discreetly spit in receptacles or containers, which shall be provided by themselves, to ensure the sanitation of public places and to safeguard the health of all citizens and persons in the City of Baguio”.

No receptacle, no chew. Or chew but no spit – which is an act hard to follow. Expectoration is part of the process, the absence of which makes the habit as incomplete as a chew without one of the three basic ingredients - the nut, the betel leaf and the catalytic lime that triggers the crimson color and “high” of the mix.

Spitting “moma” outside a corresponding receptacle is punishable by P400 fine or 30 to 60 days imprisonment, according to the ordinance. It’s in the same penalty class for simple spitting, discharging mucus from the nose, urinating and littering in public places.

“Tilmunen dan a (They should swallow it),” mayor Mauricio Domogan offered. It’s the same advice he would tell smokers who carelessly flick their cigarette butts for lack of ash trays.

Years back in Bontoc, Mt. Province, a wag pleaded for an ordinance requiring inveterate beetle nut users to hang, like a pendant or medal from their necks, spitting receptacles of recycled sardine cans or water bottles.

The city’s ordinance was the latest among similar adoptions by local government units in the Cordillera in the name of public health and sanitation. It’s also for the visual sanity of having walls, alleys, streets and other portions of public or private property free of the unsightly evidence that beetle nut chewing has transcended tribal bounds.

The problem here was not as serious as in Taiwan where betel nut production is quite extensive, being second only to rice farming. The issue there was on motorist safety, threatened by the sales strategy of the so-called “betel nut girls” who ply the nut in scanty clothing, distracting drivers along highways. It prompted passage of a law banning the skimpy-dressed girls from turning into driving hazards.

During his incumbency in the House of Representatives, then Ifugao congressman Benjamin Cappleman admitted it was to his comfort that his peers never found it offensive for him to munch and now and then spit on a portable receptacle beside him during sessions.

Up here, the comparative legislative tolerance for betel nut chewing may spur a shift by smokers to a legally freer and less hazardous habit, both to the wallet and to health.

It’s harder to hide smoke then spittle. Yet there’s no truth, as the police would swear, that they’re concentrated against smoking at the expense of other regulatory ordinances, especially after that recent report of a violator allegedly assaulting a police officer a day after the cop told him not to light and puff in public places.

As in Davao, Baguio has made the smoker’s world narrower. The city’s comprehensive anti-smoking ordinance bans the habit “in a public utility and government owned vehicles, accommodation and entertainment establishment, public building, public place, enclosed public place or any enclosed area outside one’s public residence or private place of work, except in duly-designated smoking areas”.

“Public place”, as defined in the ordinance, is quite encompassing: “(It) refers to gasoline stations, banks, malls, town squares, terminals, shopping, business arcades, schools, churches, hospitals, cinema houses, gymnasia, funeral parlors, barber shops and other similar placers were people usually congregate either to while away their time or to listen or attend concerts, rallies, programs such as, but not limited to, Mines View Park, Sunshine Park, Imelda Park, and the like provided that existing establishments in Burnham Park shall be subject (to the coverage of the ban).”

In last Monday’s breakfast meeting at city hall, councilor Fred Bagbagen also asked the police to give more enforcement teeth to his “King of the Road Ordinance” last year. The law requires motorists to fully stop/yield for five seconds before pedestrian lanes.

Pedestrians complain violations are common-place, even as the police recommended removal of some pedestrian lanes along Session Rd., claiming there are too many white zebra strips.

Councilor Richard Carino, on the other hand, found truth in the observation that there are too many traffic lights installed – four of them along the less-than-a-kilometer stretch of Harrison Road - thereby slowing down both motor vehicle and pedestrian flow.

On Carino’s suggestion, some of the traffic lights have been turned into blinking yellow, allowing both drivers and pedestrians to pass based on their visual judgment of vehicle and people flow.

Which they do, as a matter of habit, no matter what the color of the installed traffic light is the moment of their crossing or cruising. *(RD-Baguio City PIO/PIA CAR)