Fresh from his landslide victory in last week’s polls, Quezon City Mayor-elect Herbert Bautista has ordered the local price coordinating council to ensure that school supplies sold in the city are within the price ceiling set by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
This as the city’s Market Development and Administration Department (MDAD) teamed up with the DTI for the establishment of price monitoring boards in different public and private markets in Quezon City to protect consumers against unscrupulous traders and manufacturers.
According to Bautista, the local price coordinating council, apart from ensuring that traders do not overprice school supplies, should also monitor the quality of the goods.
The directive to ensure the quality of school supplies followed a finding by environmental watch group Ecowaste Coalition about the high concentration of lead in assorted school supplies bought from Divisoria, Manila and Araneta Center and Mega Q-Mart in Quezon City.
Among the school supplies which tested positive for lead way above the United States’ limit of 90 parts per million (ppm) in paint and surface coatings were hole punchers, water color sets, colored thumbtacks, butterfly clips and paper clips, play magnet sets, play blackboards, metal rulers with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) designs, PVC plastic envelopes and pencils. The group conducted tests on the items using an x-ray fluorescence analyzer on Saturday.
Ecowaste’s Project Protect coordinator Thony Dizon said in a statement: “Parents should be extra careful when buying products that are designed to aid a child’s development but could ironically contribute to reduced intelligence and school performance due to their secret lead content. We should assert the right of our children to school supplies with no hazardous ingredients that can endanger their health.”
Health scientists, the group said, have not determined a level of lead exposure that may be deemed safe for developing children and fetuses.
Meanwhile, MDAD and the DTI have installed price monitoring boards at the Cloverleaf market and MC markets in Balintawak; Muñoz market; Mega Q-Mart; Tandang Sora (Bayan) market; Litex wet and dry market; New Arayat market; and Villa Sabina market in Barangay Talipapa, Novaliches.
Assistant city market administrator Noel Soliven said that “consumer protection will continue to remain a priority program of MDAD,” adding that the primary thrust of the project is “value for money.”
He explained that the price monitoring boards were set up to guide consumers on the prevailing price ranges in the market.
Soliven added that apart from protecting consumers from unscrupulous traders, the price monitoring boards also would also help vendors in attracting more customers through competitive pricing.