Make safer firecrackers to sell more

Pyrotechnics manufacturers are complaining about the government’s campaign against exploding firecrackers and other pyrotechnics on New Year’s Eve and the days leading to it. Their industry is legal, they said, and the police have no business scaring the people against using them by showing pictures of blasted limbs. What it should do, they said, is teach the people how to use pyrotechnics properly.

The firecracker manufacturers also have no business telling the police what to do. The duty of the police is to prevent people from getting killed or injured by firecrackers. And they will do it in a way that is most effective. If the way to prevent them from injuring themselves is to show them pictures, then that is what the police will do.

On the other hand, the motive of the firecracker manufacturers is profit. Obviously, sales of pyrotechnics are going down because the people are getting the message that these can be dangerous to their health. That is why the manufacturers are complaining: their profits are going down.

The firecracker makers should go into another business if they cannot make safer pyrotechnics. While pyrotechnics manufacturing may be legal under RA 7183, the making of explosives that can kill and maim is a crime. And we have seen that every year hordes of people are either killed or injured by powerful firecrackers.

The manufacturers are to blame for that. In its desire to sell more of their products, they are making more and more powerful pyrotechnics because, according to them, that is what the public wants. Those are their products that blast the limbs and sometimes kill innocent children and stupid adults.

It is the manufacturers, not the police, who should teach the public how to explode their products. All products, whether they are medicine or food, contain warnings and directions for use. Not pyrotechnics, even though they are very dangerous.

Not just any warning will do. It should be understandable even to children. And the instructions should not be printed in letters so small that they cannot be read without a magnifying glass. And the way to do that is through pictures. Pictures are understandable even to the illiterate, to small children and to stupid adults.

If the pyrotechnics manufacturers want to sell more of their products, they should make safer firecrackers. We cannot totally eradicate the tradition, taught to us by the Chinese, of exploding firecrackers on New Year’s Eve. New Year’s Eve will not be New Year’s Eve without pyrotechnics. Can you imagine one without those colorful fireworks soaring up to the skies and all the little explosions erupting all around you? It would be very boring. Some people check into hotels on New Year’s Eve just to be able to see from their high-rise balconies or penthouses the beautiful fireworks soaring all over the megacity. We cannot, and should not, deny the people that.

At the same time, we should save many children and stupid adults from killing or injuring themselves with pyrotechnics. Every New Year’s Eve, the Philippine death and injury rate soars. All because of firecrackers.

Manufacturers think they can sell more of their products by making more powerful firecrackers. Wrong. They will actually be able to sell more by making safer firecrackers. What’s wrong with the small cigarette-sized firecracker of the old days that you can explode in your hands without injuring you? Why not manufacture that instead of the Triangulo and the Five Star, the smallest of the firecrackers but which can still injure? Why manufacture the Pla-Pla, Whistle Bomb, Atomic and other mini-bombs that can injure and sometimes even kill?

These are the pyrotechnics that the police are warning the public against. Anybody who wants to save all his fingers will understand that although the manufacturers themselves don’t.

And what’s wrong with pyrotechnics that soar into the heavens and safely explode there? The manufacturers will actually earn more if they concentrate on these and the small, safe firecrackers.

If the elders know for sure that the firecrackers are safe, they will not prevent children from buying them. Which will mean more sales for the manufacturers, ’di ba?

As for those beautiful pyrotechnics that soar into the sky, they are harder to make and to light. You usually need experts to light up those spectacular fireworks displays. But manufacturers in Hong Kong and China are already packaging them in smaller, and cheaper, sizes that are easy to light. More and more of them are now being smuggled into the Philippines. Why can’t Filipino pyrotechnics manufacturers copy them? If they do that, they would certainly earn more.

Let’s face it, the methods of our pyrotechnics makers are still  primitive. Just one look at their factories will show that. Half-naked boys, covered from head to toe with gunpowder, make firecrackers by hand for which they are paid by volume. If you are slow, you make less and therefore earn less. So the emphasis is on speed, not on safety.

And that is why many firecrackers explode prematurely. The fuses are either too short or have too much powder so that they burn much faster. That is what happens when you leave the making of dangerous products to boys.

You can’t expect much from boys. The blame should be on the owners of the factories. But it is the boys, not the owners, who are killed or maimed when a factory explodes.

And look at the factories. They are made of bamboo and nipa set wide apart in rice fields so that when one explodes the others would be safe. The owners know that their factories are not safe but do not make any effort to make them safe. They actually sacrifice the lives of those boys for their pecuniary benefit.