If it is the season for giving, Christmas could be made more meaningful for both giver and recipient by giving up that which we do at the end of December as we welcome the new year – money for firecrackers.

Instead of literally “burning” cash just to have an explosive new year’s eve welcome, we can make better use of the money by donating them to the victims of Sendong in the Visayas and Mindanao. 

We do not only cheer their hearts and lift their spirits as we use the money for charity; we also help spare the environment from the release of noxious fumes that contribute to global warming.

In short, by saving the money, we both help the less fortunate victims of Sendong while addressing climate change even for just one day.               

This is not to mention sparing precious limbs and lives unnecessarily lost every year due to accidents caused by powerful firecrackers.

In fact, health authorities have sustained their campaign of airing graphic footages of firecracker victims with hands blown off or ravaged faces as a warning to the public to avoid  pyrotechnics altogether or designating public places where they can be set off safely by experts..               

And so we strongly support and endorse Health Secretary Enrique T. Ona’s call for the public to donate to relief efforts for the victims the money intended to purchase fireworks.

Giving up the fireworks for the benefit of the victims “will ensure that we usher in the New Year free from harm and with a deep sense of fulfillment,” said Ona.

Sendong, which ravaged Cagayan de Oro and Surigao del Sur on Sunday, left more than a thousand people dead and scores of families and individuals homeless, according to disaster coordinating agencies.

The Health department has donated over P4 million worth of medicine, equipment, health goods, funds and manpower, Ona said.

The department will have an extended role in the efforts to provide adequate health care to displaced families and in the repair of rural health units and health offices that were damaged by the typhoon.

Last November, the Health agency launched APIR, a program meant to prevent or at least minimize fireworks-related injuries during the holiday celebrations.