Christmas lights sold in ‘De Oro inspected for safety

Lawyer Jose Edgardo Uy (2nd from left), head of the City Price Coordinating Council, inspects the Christmas lights sold at a store in Cagayan de Oro. (Jigger J. Jerusalem, Inquirer Mindanao)

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY –– A team from the City Price Coordinating Council (CPCC) has begun inspecting Wednesday (Nov. 27) Christmas lights being sold in the market to check if these have passed the government’s product standards and are safe for use by the public.

Lawyer Jose Edgardo Uy, head of the CPCC, said the inspection team is doing the rounds in several stores selling Christmas lights to determine if these products have complied with the regulations set by government agencies such as the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

CPCC and DTI have partnered in the conduct of random and unannounced inspections on stores.

But, Uy said, those found non-compliant with the quality standards are still given due process before the DTI could penalize store owners and their products confiscated.

Although the CPCC and DTI are jointly conducting the inspection, CPCC’s role is just to assist the latter, Uy explained.

“First, we give them (store owners) time to explain why their products have not complied with government standards. If they fail to do so, then that’s the time that we confiscate their products,” he said.

After the confiscation, the DTI will then set the time for the destruction of the seized items.

“The destruction is to ensure that those items will never be sold again as these will pose danger to our consumers,” Uy said, adding that non-compliant products are usually the ones that cause fires in homes.

Uy said CPCC and DTI hope that retailers would no longer sell substandard products as he noted that non-complying stores have dwindled in the past few years.

He recalled that in 2014 when the CPCC was created, the government confiscated such a large haul of substandard Christmas lights that they had to use a road roller to destroy them.

“Now, we only use scissors to destroy non-compliant Christmas lights, but we are hoping for the time that we no longer have to make confiscations,” Uy added.

Uy said store owners must follow government regulations as they are at the losing end if they fail to comply since they would lose a chunk of their inventory, aside from paying the penalty and being black-listed by the DTI.

The penalty, he said, is based on the capitalization of the store in that bigger establishments will have to pay higher amount. The maximum fine set by the DTI is P5 million, he added.

Edited by LZB