PIA Press Release
Monday, January 02, 2012 Economic crisis, rain cited in decline of firecracker victims in ESamarby Alice Nicart BORONGAN CITY, Eastern Samar, Jan 2, (PIA) –- On top of the Department of Health’s (DOH) campaign against the use of firecrackers, Dr. Stephen Cantay of the Provincial Health Office (PHO) here attributed the decline in firecracker-related injuries to economic crisis. He said that due to financial difficulty, families could have preferred to buy food instead of firecracker, and it also rained suddenly minutes before midnight of December 31. “It is perhaps of the difficulty in earning money that people opted to buy the most important needs of the family, instead of firecrackers, that there was less incidents of firecracker-related injuries in the recent New Year revelry,” Dr. Cantay said. “Also, it rained minutes before the clock struck the 12th hour of December 31, which could have hampered the outdoor merry-makers,” he added. As of this writing, there were only five victims with light injuries. This is a big decrease compared to last year’s record of 10 victims, the doctor added. Asked if he would support the proposal to penalize parents of children who become victims of firecrackers, the doctor replied in the affirmative saying that parents should assume the big responsibility in supervising their children’s activities vis-à-vis handling of firecrackers but, he however disagreed to imprison parents for this reason.(PIA-Eastern Samar/Alice Nicart) |
