Court puffs out MMDA anti-smoking ban

A LOCAL court on Tuesday has thrown cold water and puffed out to a whiff of smoke the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) ban on smoking in Metro Manila.

In a six-page order, Mandaluyong RTC Branch 21 Judge Carlos Valenzuela slapped a writ of preliminary injunction against MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino and other persons acting within his authority to stop from arresting persons who will be caught smoking in open areas in the metropolis.

Valenzuela’s order was without any duration and shall be determined if it will be lifted or not upon determination of the merits of the case.

“Foregoing considered, pending the determination of whether or not the respondent MMDA has valid authority to implement RA 9211, there is an obvious and imperative need for preliminary injunction, a provisional measure to prevent or restrain in the meantime the MMDA to implement its Smoking Ban in open areas not covered by the definition of public places in RA 9211 so that its implementation may not render moot and acadamic the main issue in this case,” the rules states.

The Mandaluyong RTC injunction order covers the major and minor thoroughfares, and sidewalks in Metro Manila.

The ruling was issued in view of the urgency of the petition to enjoin MMDA from implementing its new directive against smoking in public places.

“Wherefore, a let a Writ of Preliminary Injunction be issued against respondents, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA). Hon. Francis Tolentino, in his capacity as MMDA Chairman, and all persons acting under them or under their authority to cease and desist, enjoin them from enforcing and implementing the No Smoking Campaign in open areas not covered by the definition of public places in RA 9211, including but not limited to, major and minor thoroughfares, and sidewalks, in Metro Manila,” it stressed.

The Court added that “the bond in the amount of P100-thousand which petitioners earlier posted for the temporary restraining order (TRO) shall suffice as the bond for this Writ of Preliminary Injunction.”

The case reached the lower court after smoker Antony Clemente and several smokers who were arrested questioned the MMDA policy, alleged to be illegal.

“From the evidence so far presented in this petition, this court finds that petitioners were apprehended by respondents while smoking on an ‘open area’. The area of assignment of respondents’ witnesses and where petitioners were apprehended, as shown by the pictures presented by respondents, is clearly not an ‘enclosed or confined area’ . Neither is it a bus station, not is it a designated non-smoking area, as what respondents postulated it is. On the contrary, the said area, which is right beside EDSA is an ‘open area’ that serves as a sidewalk for the general public,” it added.

The RTC argued that “being an open area, a sidewalk without a confined or enclosed space cannot be considered within the definition of public places under Sec 3 (n) , in relation to Sec. 5 of RA 9211” or the Smoking Ban law.


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