Baguio digital pay system/ Smoking down, vaping up

CITY HALL BEAT

Aileen P. Refuerzo

BAGUIO CITY --– Businessmen currently using Paleng-QR PH program cashless payment system were urged to claim their tax discount from the City Government as their incentive in adopting the digital payment program of the government.
    Mayor Benjamin Magalong said pursuant to City Council ordinance no. 71 series of 2022, businesses that will provide QR PH cashless service as alternative mode of payment will be entitled to a one-time 2.5 percent discount in their business taxes on the first year of adoption.
    Qualified businessmen can have their QR codes verified at the Permits and Licensing Division (PLD) to avail of the discount.
    Those who have already paid their business taxes for the year can have their QR codes verified at the PLD and they will be issued incentive coupons for the discount to be deducted from their tax payment next year.
    The QR codes must be in the name of the business owner and if not in the name of the business owner, businesses owned by corporations or partnerships must present a resolution and if sole proprietorship, an authorization letter may be presented.
    As per the records of Permits and Licensing Division (PLD), there are approximately 23,000 business establishments in the city with business permits and as of Feb. 22, 2023, a total of 11,688 have renewed their permits and a total of 351 new businesses have registered.
    At the city market where the Paleng-QR system is strongly advocated, there are more or less 4,000 businesses, around 50 percent of which had registered in the QR cashless payment system based on the survey conducted by the City Treasury Office.
    City officials enjoined all business establishments and local public transportation in the city to adopt QR PH digital system as alternative mode of payment in line with the national and local governments’ digitization program.
    The Paleng-QR Ph cashless payment program was deployed at the city market in August 2022 with the offline cash transactions handled by top financial service providers (FSP) Gcash and Maya and online transactions like Online Marketplace and delivery by Unionbank.
    Landbank online takes charge of the e-gov cashless online transactions.
    A joint project of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Dept. of Interior and Local Government, the program aims to facilitate cashless transactions in public markets and transportation.
    The DILG said QR Ph will serve as the national QR code standard to pave the way for faster and easier mobile payment transactions. It can be used for person-to-person (P2P) or person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions.
    With QR Ph, small businesses need not have expensive equipment like point of sale (POS) terminals to receive digital payment.
    Through QR Ph, merchants can print and share their QR codes which their customers can scan.
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A 2022 survey on tobacco use among residents aged 15 years and above in the city had produced both good and bad news.
    The good news: tobacco use prevalence sharply decreased from 35.4 percent in 2014 to 13. 1 percent for both male and female; daily or hardcore smoking prevalence also declined from 31 to 8.9 percent; and incidence of cigarettes bought from street vendors went down to zero percent.
    Second hand smoke exposure also significantly went down in government buildings from 11.1 to 4.3 percent; restaurants from 31 to 6.7 percent and in public transport from 26 to 11 percent.
    The bad news: e-cigarette use like vape went up dramatically from 1.5 percent in 2019 to 5.1 percent in 2022 for a more than 300 percent increase while the prevalence of the use of smokeless tobacco like betel nut or moma also shot up from 1.1 in 2014 to 3.5 percent in 2022, also a 300 percent hike.
    The said results of the 2022 Baguio Adult Tobacco Survey were reported by Medical Officer IV Dr. Nelson Hora of the City Health Services Office which conducted the study jointly with the St. Louis University School of Medicine Department of Family and Community Medicine first in 2014, then in 2016, 2019 and in 2022.
    The increase in e-cigarette use was prevalent among the 15-24 age group which Tobacco Control Officer Dr. Donnabel Panes said is brought about by the misconception that vape use is a safer alternative to cigarette smoking, which she said is not true since vape is also harmful and also contains the harmful nicotine substance.
The survey method was developed by the World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control to monitor tobacco use and other components of how the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, the Smoke-Free Baguio City Ordinance and other laws on tobacco are being implemented.
    There were 880 respondents, all Baguio residents 15 years old and above chosen through systematic household sampling from 16 barangays representing the catchment population covered by the city’s 16 health centers.
    Hora said tobacco use control is a main health strategy considering that it is a major preventable risk factor for all the non-communicable diseases identified as the top causes of mortality in the city and even other infectious diseases afflicting the city’s populace.