ILOILO CITY -- The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in Western Visayas on Friday launched its first radio consumer education program to “increase level of awareness on consumer protection.”
“It will provide its audience proper information that affects their daily lives, issues and concerns on consumer rights and responsibilities, product quality and safety and frontline government services and projects,” said Felisa Judith Degala, chief of the consumer protection division of DTI-6.
The launching of the program was among the highlights of the Consumer Welfare Month celebration this October in the region.
Undersecretary Teodoro Pascua, who graced Friday's launching, said that the national awareness on consumer rights based on the survey conducted by the Pulse Asia for the period March to June this year was at 80 to 81 percent compared with the 68 percent for the same period in 2016.
“We are really trying to raise the awareness because the problem begins not when the problem exists but before you meet the problem. So if you are able to identify what are the safeguards, what are the precautionary measures that you can take, then you take away the probability of the imminence of problem,” Pascua said.
In Western Visayas, the consumer index is at 68 percent, according to DTI director Rebecca Rascon. She added that they still have to “penetrate down to the barangays,” thus the radio program.
Dubbed as “Konsyumer Kag Iban Pa sa Rehiyon 6” is a localized version of the “Konsyumer at Iba Pa” program aired over the DZMM teleradyo.
It is an interactive 30-minutes program aired every Saturday over Bombo Radyo Iloilo with a series of episodes to be hosted by the DTI and its other partner agencies.
Meantime, Pascua underscored the need for consumers to “be ready with e-commerce and the digital world.” “Fortunately or unfortunately, our circumstances already augur for that,” he stated.
Nonetheless, he said that “basic rights remain the same, whether it’s a face -to-face issue or internet.”
“That’s why we are saying consumer rights during the digital age must be emphasized, otherwise, we will be jumping without knowing what danger lies beneath. Join us advocate it and not only to the millennials,” he urged.
This year's celebration anchors on the theme "Consumer Rights in the Digital Age." (PNA)
