Baguio receives Global Tobacco Control Award

BAGUIO CITY — Mayor Benjamin Magalong, on behalf of the city government here, received a Bloomberg Philanthropies Awards for Global Tobacco Control 2025 in the Monitoring Tobacco Use category in Dublin, Ireland, on Monday.

City Health Services Office (CHSO) information officer Karl Jon Pagada said the award cited the city government’s commitment to a smoke-free and vape-free Baguio.

It praised the city for collaborating with its medical school, establishing a public-private partnership model for ongoing surveillance of tobacco use.

The program set a precedent for future national and subnational surveillance action, serving as a blueprint for other local governments to follow to advance both public health and non-health collaborations.

The Bloomberg Philanthropies Awards for Global Tobacco Control recognizes the significant strides governments and nongovernmental organizations have made in adopting and implementing the MPOWER strategy by the World Health Organization (WHO).

MPOWER is a set of six evidence-based tobacco control strategies to help countries reduce tobacco use with the letter “M” focusing on Monitoring, “P” to Protect people from the ill-effects of smoking and vaping, “O” to Offer individuals support to quit tobacco use, “W” to put “Warning” signs on tobacco products, “E” for Enforcing the law on the prohibition of tobacco advertisements and “R” for Raising taxes to discourage the use of the deadly vice.

Pagada said the City Smoke Free Taskforc​e, through the CHSO under Dr. Celia Flor Brillantes, conducts surveys in partnership with medical students to determine a quick status on the ground.

Surveys such as the Global Youth Tobacco Survey and Global Adult Tobacco Survey have been conducted in the city with the most recent survey in 2023. These surveys are used by the taskforce as a data-driven approach in tobacco control actions, he added.

Baguio was awarded a similar award by Bloomberg in 2018 as the city enacted its Smoke-Free Ordinance in 2017 and has upheld the provisions through its smoke-free taskforce and active advocacy groups since its enactment.

The Bloomberg awards were first held in 2009 at the World Health Conference on Tobacco or Health in Mumbai, India.

Bloomberg Philanthropies works to ensure better, longer lives for the greatest number of people by focusing on five key areas: the arts, education, environment, government innovation and public health.