UP Baguio is a non-smoking campus.

So goes the sign boards in UP Baguio. Still, fifty percent or more are smoking inside the campus. Inside the JL rooms, when we’re having a general assembly. Outside the Outcrop Office.  Backstage of the Bulwagang Juan Luna. Any place where the guards can’t see them.

I was shocked to know that there are only more or less seven of us who still refuse to smoke after almost everyone in a certain organization have already tried smoking. I wonder why they still continue doing it despite the knowledge that smoking is bad for the health.

I am not against smokers. It’s their decision to try smoking and get addicted to the fact that they know how to smoke, and eventually get addicted to smoking itself. I just hope they’d consider that there are also non-smokers in UP Baguio. We really don’t want second-hand smoke, because it’s worse. And it’s not really right to teach or to influence us to do the same.

If UPians can’t be expected to follow simple rules inside the campus, how much more can they expect themselves to follow and lead in our own country? –ooh, that’s a very big picture. I’m sorry, I just don’t like second-hand smoke.